


lying here beside me, palms and eyes open wide

by stevenstamkos



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: 2017-2018 NHL Season, Accidental Baby Acquisition, Didn't Know They Were Dating, Domestic, M/M, Mutual Pining, New York Rangers, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Wishbabies, co-parenting but just as bros haha....just as bros right?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-16
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-10-11 08:54:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17443787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stevenstamkos/pseuds/stevenstamkos
Summary: It takes Ryan a stupidly long time to find something that doesn’t sayMilleror have the number 10 on it. Bad enough he just agreed to platonically co-parent J.T.’s wish baby with him and is about to be wearing his clothes. He doesn’t need to brand himself with the guy’s name and number too, like a massive sign to the world thatHey, I have super intense feelings for this guy. He might as well wear a shirt that saysKick meon the back.





	lying here beside me, palms and eyes open wide

**Author's Note:**

> You: Why are you writing this? This pairing doesn't even make sense.  
> Me: I am a goblin and Ryan McDonagh holds a baby real good. Big dad energy.
> 
> I'm really #sorry about the baby's name but keep in mind that these are White People naming children. Thank you.
> 
> Title from "Inevitable" by Anberlin.

Ryan is woken up on Monday morning by the familiar sound of his phone ringing. For a second, he thinks it’s his alarm, and he’s reaching blindly over to the dresser and groping around for it before some part of his brain registers that the tone is wrong. And then his hand connects with his phone and he’s dragging it closer so he can look at the screen, lit up with an incoming call.

They’re only six days into the season (1-2-0) and there’s really no reason he can think of for J.T. Miller to be calling him at 6:13 in the morning on a day they don’t even have a game.

He answers.

“Millsy, what—” he starts, but J.T. cuts him off.

“Mac,” J.T. says on the other end, voice hoarse and tight, and Ryan hears him take a ragged breath, about the noisiest breath Ryan’s ever heard. “Fuck. Oh god, Mac, I need you.”

And whatever feelings Ryan might have about J.T.’s choice of words are washed away by the panic in his voice. Ryan is prepared for almost anything after years of dealing with impulsive jocks and wide-eyed rookies (not mutually exclusive things), and he’s already sitting up, untangling himself from his sheets with one hand and holding his phone to his ear with the other. “Shit, okay, what’s up, Millsy?”

“I’m fucking panicking, man! I don’t know—I fucked up, I don’t know what to do, tell me what to do—”

“What’d you do?”

“I can’t—Can you come over?” Theoretically Ryan could, and it’s early enough that the city hasn’t yet been flooded by commuters on their way to work. He’s convinced when J.T. adds, “It’s an emergency. Big-time.”

“Okay.” Ryan grabs a t-shirt off a chair and finds a pair of jeans on the floor, belt still threaded through the loops. As he pulls on his clothes, he says into the phone, “Give me fifteen. Don’t do anything stupid.” He grabs his toothbrush before putting it back and reaching for the mouthwash instead. “Seriously, don’t do anything stupid, Millsy. Wait for me to get there.”

“Okay,” J.T. says, voice smaller now, filled with gratitude. “Okay, Mac. Thanks.”

Ryan hangs up.

He doesn’t have long to wait outside J.T.’s apartment, gets buzzed in right away and is met at the door with J.T.’s anxious face. Ryan opens his mouth to ask what’s up when J.T. takes a quick look down the hall and pulls him inside, shutting the door quietly. That really should’ve been a warning sign, Ryan thinks later on. J.T. never does anything quietly.

“What’s up?” Ryan asks, following him down the hall towards the back of the apartment.

“I woke up this morning and—Okay, I don’t know how this happened, I don’t know what I was thinking, but it was just _there_ this morning and I freaked out, man, like I freaked out—”

“Millsy,” Ryan says. “What the fuck is going on?”

“I have…a little…” He gives up and starts over again. “Look, I thought since you’re the captain and you’re like, a really great leader in the room and everyone jokes that you’re the team dad, you know, that you’d be perfect for this, so—”

They enter the guest room at the very back of the apartment, and Ryan’s eyes land on the silver cradle, a bundle of blankets inside and a pair of very wide eyes just visible. There’s a cheery silver flag sticking up from the blankets, announcing in curly letters that _It’s A Girl!_

“ _Oh fu_ —”

He catches himself in time, and next to him, J.T. has entered full panic mode. “I opened my door this morning and it was just there!”

“Holy—God. You wished up a baby.”

“I know!” J.T. is nearly wailing, and his voice cracks halfway through his sentence. “I couldn’t just leave her out there so I brought her inside and had a meltdown and then called you.”

Ryan has to grab him by the shoulders and shake him a little, and he seems to calm down under his touch.

“Hey. Breathe. We’re gonna deal with this, Millsy. We are. We’re gonna figure this out together.”

Ryan knows it won’t be easy to raise a child, not with them on the road half the time, their lives revolving around hockey and all the demands of the season, but they can do this. Well, he means that _J.T._ can do this. J.T. is the dad after all, and Ryan is going to be the helpful godfather or uncle or whatever, because he’s the captain and he feels obligated to help when his friend and teammate ends up with an unexpected baby.

J.T. is nodding, like one of the bobbleheads that the Rangers are always handing out at games. “Right, yeah, okay, I knew you’d know what to do. We’re gonna—We’re gonna deal with this.” A little pause. “So…what do I do now?”

Ryan looks at the baby, who gurgles adorably at him. It’s unbearably cute and at the same time extremely terrifying. That's a tiny human being in the charge of J.T. Miller. J.T., who locked himself out of his apartment last week and still forgets his credit card when the team goes out for dinner. This is going to require the mother of all game plans, and it’s definitely going to be Ryan who has to come up with it. He closes his eyes for a long moment and tries to gather his thoughts.

“Coffee,” he finally says.

J.T. stares at him. “For the baby?”

Ryan presses his lips together and breathes out heavily through his nose. The baby starts crying.

 

Fifteen minutes later, Ryan is left sitting in his teammate’s kitchen, holding his teammate’s magical wish infant in one arm and a baby bottle in his other hand. He’s only been awake for an hour.

“We have practice soon,” J.T. says around a yawn. He has formula spilt down the front of his shirt from when he pulled the bottle out of the microwave too fast, but he doesn’t seem to care. He seems to have moved from panic to resignation.

“You should probably call Jeff or A.V. or something, let them know about this.”

J.T. opens his mouth, like he’s going to argue, but then he closes it and nods. “You think they’ll give me today off?”

“At least. You need to buy stuff, either today or tomorrow. A crib and probably a baby carrier, for starters. Diapers, blankets, that sort of thing. Baby formula too before you run out; she only came with enough to last a couple days. And you need to find someone who’ll watch her when you’re at the rink or on the road.” Ryan pauses. “Unless you go on paternity leave. They have to offer it, especially with a wish baby, since you had no time to prep and no partner to help you out—”

“No way,” J.T. cuts in quickly. “Not doing that. I can’t just lose this whole season. I need to play.”

“It’s going to be hard, Millsy. Just watching Step and Nasher become dads—It’s great, but they had to wake up in the middle of the night for feedings and to change diapers, and they were _married_ and everything—”

“I know, I know.” J.T. starts pacing, fidgeting with the bottom of his t-shirt. In Ryan’s arms, the baby stops feeding mid-bottle, and he carefully pulls the nipple from her mouth, trying not to spill any of the formula. J.T. watches him. “You’re good at this.”

“I helped out with Step’s kid.”

J.T. narrows his eyes at him, which he does when he has a terrible new idea. Ryan is almost afraid to ask.

“So…you know what you’re doing. Like, you have experience with all this.” J.T. waves a hand around the kitchen, at the ripped-open packet of formula, the wet towel he’d used to wipe up the mess on the counter, and the coffee brewing in the coffee pot that he still hasn’t poured for Ryan. “You know like, what babies need and how to deal with them—”

“Kind of, yeah. I sort of wing it, to be honest.”

“Okay, but you’re like. You’re team dad and you definitely take care of all the guys, so you got like, dad instincts and everything. You could…I mean, you don’t have to, and I don’t want you to feel like you have to, but could you sometimes help me—”

Ryan takes pity on his stumbling and says, “Yeah, I’ll help you out.”

It’s not like he could ever say _no_ to J.T. Miller. Not that J.T. knows that.

As J.T. fishes his phone out and calls the Rangers GM, Ryan stands and puts the baby by his shoulder, patting her back gently. That’s something that you do with babies after they drink milk, right? He’s pretty sure he remembers something about that, though Step never had him try it before with his kid. He faintly remembers something about a towel too, though he can’t figure out why.

J.T., still on the phone, looks over and mouths _What?_ at him. Ryan shakes his head.

He tries not to listen too hard, even when J.T. starts furiously saying “No,” over and over into the mouthpiece. Whatever it is he’s saying no to, he must win Jeff Gorton over, because he then nods and agrees to something and then passes the phone to Ryan.

The baby chooses that moment to puke up half the milk in her, right down Ryan’s back.

Right. Now he remembers what the deal with the towel was.

As he takes the phone, he maneuvers the sleepy baby so she’s in J.T.’s arms, ignoring the sound of protest this gets him from J.T. “Wait, Mac, I don’t know how to hold—”

Ryan ignores him, choosing instead to strip off his wet shirt and put the phone up to his ear. He steps out into the hallway.

“He turned down six months’ paternity leave,” Jeff is saying, sounding flustered. “Said he had a partner who would help him take care of it. We need him to be on top of his game this season, and he’s gonna be up half the night bottle-feeding his baby.”

“You know Millsy. He worked hard for his spot.”

“Yeah, but we can’t afford him being distracted. We’d be better off granting him leave and calling up someone from Hartford. I know you’re a responsible guy, Mac. Keep an eye on him, yeah? Make sure he’s got his priorities straight, and if he starts going off the rails later on, let me know and we’ll put him on leave.”

Ryan doesn’t want that to happen, but he understands where Jeff is coming from. “Yeah, course.”

“And Mac, help the kid out, okay? J.T.’s just a kid.”

_He’s really not; he's 24_ , Ryan thinks, but he finds himself agreeing anyway.

“Take the day off. You and him both. I’ll let the press know you’re taking a maintenance day.”

“We’ve only had three games.”

“You blocked six shots last night, and one of them was a bomb from Shea Weber.” Jeff has a point there. “I’ve told J.T. he gets a week on leave but I expect you back on the ice tomorrow against St. Louis.”

“Of course. Thanks, Jeff.”

J.T. is pale and anxious when Ryan reenters the kitchen, and the baby’s head needs more support than he’s giving it, but he’s still holding the baby and he hasn’t dropped her or anything, so Ryan counts this as a win. He puts J.T.’s phone on the counter, next to his ruined shirt.

“You okay?”

“Think so. She’s sleeping.”

The baby is so small in J.T.’s arms, lost in the crook of his elbow. There’s an equally lost look on J.T.’s face. Ryan feels his heart do something funny in his chest, a melting kind of feeling, and he stomps down on that feeling viciously.

“I’m gonna clean up and borrow a shirt and then we can go buy stuff.”

“Yeah. Uh, t-shirts are in the second and third drawer in my dresser. Help yourself.”

It takes Ryan a stupidly long time to find something that doesn’t say _Miller_ or have the number 10 on it. Bad enough he just agreed to platonically co-parent J.T.’s wish baby with him and is about to be wearing his clothes. He doesn’t need to brand himself with the guy’s name and number too, like a massive sign to the world that _Hey, I have super intense feelings for this guy_. He might as well wear a shirt that says _Kick me_ on the back.

“Mac?” J.T. yells, from the direction of the kitchen. “She’s crying again! What do I do!”

Ryan grabs the nearest clean shirt—a Team North America one from the World Cup—and pulls it on, trying to ignore the familiar smell lingering on the material. He has a lot of way more important things to worry about right now.

 

Shopping with J.T. is…pretty normal and not as bad as Ryan was expecting. He calmed down again once they put the baby in her silver cradle, and then they put the cradle in the shopping cart, J.T. pushing it slowly through the store to make sure they don’t bump her or anything. Ryan googles necessities on his phone and makes a few calls to his mom, who gets very stressed and excited over the idea of Ryan acquiring a baby without telling her. He feels almost bad correcting her.

She’s been dying for him to settle down, he knows, and at 28, he’s one of the older unmarried guys on the team. But he just never found the right person to start a family with.

The right person he could have, Ryan amends, glancing at J.T. out of the corner of his eye, to where J.T. is leaning his full weight against the shopping cart’s handlebar and is making ridiculous faces for the baby staring back at him.

He’s facing a whole shelf of baby products, debating between Pampers and Luvs, when he hears a woman’s bright, friendly voice behind him.

“Oh, are you two new parents?” The woman has stopped her own shopping cart and is smiling indulgently between J.T. and him, the kind of look that Ryan remembers Step getting when he was a new dad. There’s just something about women and babies, he guesses.

“She’s—” Ryan starts, but J.T. mumbles, faster, “Yeah, um, you could say that.”

“Well can I just say that your little one is absolutely precious. So small and adorable. They’re so delightful at that age.”

“We got her today.”

“Oh! Adopted? Or surrogate? Or did you wish for her?”

J.T. nods. “I uh, guessed I wished.”

The woman’s eyes go all soft and kind of misty. “That’s so _wonderful_. You must love each other very much, to wish up a baby.”

Ryan’s mouth dries right up. He coughs to cover it, and then he looks at J.T. in time to catch the hot flush spreading over his face.

“Y-Yeah. We—Yeah.”

“I can see it. The love you two share, I mean.”

The flush disappears beneath the collar of J.T.’s shirt, and Ryan hates that he knows exactly how far down it goes, from five seasons of sharing a locker room. _Oh god, please leave_ , he thinks at the woman.

The baby makes a fussy little noise, and Ryan puts down the diapers and reaches automatically into the cart to brush a finger against her round cheek. She opens her eyes and looks at him, reaching out with one tiny hand to touch his finger.

“You’re a natural,” the woman says. She’s still smiling, when Ryan looks. It’s starting to put him on edge. “What’s her name?”

“Uh—”

“Jaeda,” J.T. blurts out. “Jaeda Tailynn.”

“Aww. Well I’m sure little Jaeda will grow up to be such a wonderful girl, with parents like you. You’re gonna do a fantastic job raising her. She’s a beautiful baby.”

“Thanks,” Ryan says, kind of lamely. She’s not even his baby, but he feels a swell of pride.

“I’ll let you get back to your day. Good luck with your baby. Being a parent for the first time is a once in a lifetime experience.” The woman shoots them one more smile. As she leaves, she adds, “By the way, go with Pampers. Great on your little one’s skin.”

Ryan stares after her and her rattling cart, and then he looks at J.T., eyebrows raised.

“Jaeda Tailynn?”

“It’s what my parents were gonna name me if I was a girl. I panicked.”

“They really liked the J.T. thing, huh.”

“Yeah, I think they named me Jonathan Tanner just so they could call me J.T. I could’ve been like…Jack Tyler or something.”

“Or Jaeda Tailynn,” Ryan chuckles. He puts a pack of Pampers diapers in the cart, dipping into the cradle for a second to touch the baby’s cheek again. There’s something addicting about it. Babies are so soft.

“What was that you just put in?”

“Diapers.”

J.T.’s head swings around faster than Ryan knew was humanly possible. “I don’t do diapers.”

“You do now.”

“Mac—”

“Relax, bud. We got this, remember? I’ll show you the ropes or whatever.”

Diapers must really be a problem, because it takes a long moment of thinking for J.T. to give in and agree.

It’s been a while since Step’s little one needed Ryan’s help with diapers. Ryan hopes that changing a diaper is one of those things that’s a lot like riding a bike. It shouldn’t be too bad, he hopes. He drops a couple of bibs into the cart and then goes to stop J.T. from buying a _BABY UP IN THIS BITCH_ bumper sticker for his car.

 

They’re in the car, bitch sticker in place and J.T. putting the keys in the ignition, when he turns to Ryan and says suddenly, “You know, I was thinking in there and I kinda like Jaeda Tailynn, actually.”

“As like an actual name for her?”

“Yeah. What do you think?”

“Jaeda Tailynn Miller.” Ryan cranes his head so he can look around the passenger seat and see the baby secured in her new infant car seat. He takes a breath. “You’re the father, so I think it’s just important that you like the name.”

“You’re kind of taking care of her too so…I mean, it matters to me what you think, too.”

Ryan has to keep looking at the baby, because he doesn’t think he could look at J.T. right now, not with his heart stuttering in his chest like that. “Um,” he says quietly. “I like it too.”

 

When J.T. walks into the locker room a week later, every head turns toward him and Ryan sees the exact moment the thought crosses 21 minds.

Zucc gets there first. “Well?” he says. “Where’s the baby?”

J.T. stops in the doorway, eyes wide. “She’s at home? With the nanny.” He’s looking at Ryan, speaking almost entirely to him.

Ryan nods, mostly because he can’t get a word in what with the rising tide of disappointed groans from the guys.

“Oh come on, Millsy.”

“We wanted to see your wish baby.”

“Mac wouldn’t tell us _anything_ —”

“Whatever J.T. wants to say about his baby is up to him,” Ryan says.

“Okay _Dad_.” Ryan can’t tell who says that, but he wouldn’t put it past Brady or Jimmy.

“I just wanted to get back on the ice today,” J.T. is telling the room at large, still looking a little lost. The good-natured grumbling morphs into regular locker room chatter, and the boys go back to getting dressed and talking about the game tomorrow night against Pittsburgh. Mika released a new song, and Buch asks him about it, which gets Mika going for a good ten minutes.

J.T. is still tightening the straps on his elbow pads when Ryan slides fully dressed into the empty stall next to him. J.T.’s eyes flick to him for a second, and then he reaches for the other elbow pad.

“How is she?”

“Mac, you saw her yesterday.” Ryan waits patiently, and J.T. adds after a beat, “She’s good. Beyond good. When she started crying after you left, I changed her diaper all on my own and didn’t get shit on myself for the first time.”

“Nice. And the nanny…?”

“Yeah. Eva agreed to watch Jaeda for all practices and home games, and she’ll be a live-in when we’re on roadies. She’s real good, Mac. Where’d you even find her?”

“I called Step and asked him what nanny service he used.”

“Well Jaeda seems okay with her and Eva seemed pretty clutch when I left them this morning.”

“Right. That’s good. I guess you don’t really need me anymore.”

There’s a long pause as J.T. pulls on his jersey and adjusts it. Ryan reaches around him and flips up the back, untucking it.

He tries not to think about J.T. bonding with his kid’s nanny over his very cute baby and falling in love with her and running away with her to the Bahamas during bye week or something. This isn’t one of those books Haysie pretends he doesn’t read on the plane.

(“Everyone knows the babysitter always falls in love with the single dad,” Haysie had sniffed when Grabs pointed out how unrealistic those books were.)

“I mean,” J.T. says slowly, “Eva’s only around when I’m not. And I could still use some help with Jaeda. I’ve only had her for a week and I’m—I’m still not really sure what I’m doing, so. I still gotta make sure she gets all her shots and uh, I don’t have her room set up yet, and there’s some other stuff, I forgot.”

“You want me to come over after practice? Help you with some setting up?”

“Yeah. Could you?”

Ryan claps him on the shoulder. “Sure thing, Millsy. I always got your back. You know I do.”

 

The boys have the decency to wait another week before they start popping up at J.T.’s apartment with flimsy excuses. It’s not like J.T.’s place is super popular normally, but suddenly, he’s getting visitors all the time. It starts with Mika.

Ryan is moving some furniture around in the guest room, which J.T. is converting into a nursery for Jaeda, when the doorbell rings for probably the first time since J.T. moved in.

“What?” J.T. says, and he even stops folding baby clothes as he straightens up.

“That was your doorbell.”

“Yeah, I mean, I know that Captain Obvious. People just text me if they’re coming over.” He checks his phone, but there must not be any unopened messages because he shakes his head a little, frowning.

Jaeda chooses that moment to start crying for her next feeding. J.T. looks torn between her and the doorbell, which goes off again.

“I’ll get the door,” Ryan says.

Mika doesn’t even blink when he sees it’s Ryan who opens the door, just says, “Mac Truck!” and blows by him, hitting him in the leg with three bulging bags as he goes. At least the bags are soft.

“Hi Mika,” Ryan says.

“Where’s the baby? I brought stuff.”

Ryan looks through the bags that Mika dumps on the living room table. “She’s with Millsy,” he says, but he’s distracted by the mountains of baby clothes that Mika is unearthing. “Did you buy all this?”

“No, Henke chipped in.” Mika holds up a little _Future Goalie_ shirt as proof. “And look, I got her this little bunny onesie. And a camo one cause you know Millsy.”

“Country boy to the bone,” Ryan agrees.

“And Kreids got her these baby crocs.”

“I mean, I don’t think she’ll be wearing them for a while, but thanks.”

“You’re welcome, Trucker. So how’s it feel to be a father?”

Ryan almost drops the tiny crocs. “She’s not mine, you know that Mika.”

“She’s practically yours. You’re over here what, every day? Do you live with Millsy now?”

“I just come over after practice for a few hours, do some babysitting and make sure that Millsy doesn’t forget to change her diaper. It’s not being a father for real.” He almost forgets the last part, and he adds hastily, “And I definitely don’t live with Millsy.”

Mika hums. “You sure you don’t feel like a dad?”

And Ryan can’t deny that over the past two weeks, he’s fallen in love with Jaeda and her round cheeks, her little nose, her big dark eyes, so much like J.T.’s. He feels a protectiveness he really can’t justify whenever he holds her or feeds her, and he’s started to think of her as his own, in a way, even though he really, really shouldn’t. She’s not his daughter, no matter how much he does for her.

“I’m just helping out a teammate. I feel fine.”

“Okay, Mac.” Mika smoothly changes the subject. “Where’s J.T.?”

“In his bedroom, I think. In the back. If he’s not there, he should be feeding her in the guest room.”

Mika abandons the baby clothes and speed walks to the back of the apartment, and Ryan follows at a slower pace. The bedroom is empty when he sticks his head in, just J.T.’s usual mess, and he finds both J.T. and Mika in the guest room, a half-empty bottle on the windowsill. Jaeda is awake in J.T.’s arms, Mika standing over her.

“Can I hold her?” he asks, hushed.

“Yeah,” J.T. says. “Let me just—”

There’s some awkward maneuvering as J.T. hands her off, and Mika takes her carefully with a fond little, “Come to Uncle Mika.” And then Mika squeals. There’s no other word for the high-pitched sound that comes out of him as he holds Jaeda cradled to his chest.

“She’s so precious,” he says, though the last word is said into her belly and comes out muffled. He pulls his face away and looks at J.T. “Now I get why Mac never goes home.”

Ryan and J.T. both open their mouths, but Mika is beyond them by now, whispering nonsense to Jaeda as she blinks up at him.

“I’m gonna keep setting up the dresser,” Ryan says.

“I’m gonna…join you,” J.T. says. “Don’t steal her, Mika.”

“I think he already has.”

 

(Henke brings rain and another mountain of baby clothes, along with a whole collection of things that Ryan didn’t even know were needed for babies. Like, Jaeda has been doing fine so far, but he didn’t know that babies could use that many toys. Or that many towels, bibs, or other clothes. Sometimes, Ryan thinks J.T. would’ve been better off asking Henke for help that first day, but he’s selfishly glad that J.T. asked him instead.

Shatty buys Jaeda a Rangers onesie, since J.T. hasn’t gotten her any Rangers stuff yet. She looks perfect with the team logo.

Haysie goes fucking apeshit for Jaeda, though Ryan makes sure to keep half an eye on him while he’s with her. It’s not that he doesn’t trust Haysie, but he doesn’t exactly trust Haysie with a baby.

Some of the guys warn J.T. ahead of time, some don’t, and some text Ryan when they’re coming over, trusting him to be at J.T.’s apartment. They’re right most of the time.

At the end of every visit, J.T. looks overwhelmed, caught up in raising a baby and hosting half the team at any given time, and Ryan knows to gently shoo everyone out the door whenever he’s starting to look like that. Ryan is always torn between leaving himself, giving J.T. some time to himself, and pulling J.T. into his arms for a—a hug. A hug, definitely just a hug.

He goes with the former, putting Jaeda back in her crib and telling J.T. he’ll see him at practice. J.T. always looks like he wants to say something, but he never does.)

 

“How’s he doing?” Rangers president Sather asks after a road game in Chicago.

Ryan looks up from icing his groin and abdomen, surprised. He really doesn’t get why everyone seems to think he’s J.T. Miller’s handler, rather than approaching J.T. themselves. But he doesn’t comment on it, only says, “He’s good. You know Millsy, he’s tough.”

“Yeah. You let me know if he needs us, okay? Kid won’t say anything.”

“I’ll keep an eye out.” Ryan nods, and he doesn’t say anything about J.T. sleeping through their most recent roadies, only waking for meetings and practices and games. He wouldn’t do that to J.T.

 

Mid-November, J.T. falls asleep during a routine video session where they’re going over tape of the Sens. A.V.’s back is turned, and J.T. is a pretty quiet sleeper, which is a surprise considering how loud he is when he’s awake, but Ryan still kicks him as gently as he can until he comes awake with a grunt.

“Something to add, Millsy?” A.V. asks.

“Nope,” J.T. says. His voice is hoarse but his tone is cheerful, almost defiant. He at least waits until A.V. has turned away again before he yawns.

 

_Don’t get too close_ , Ryan thinks to himself, and then he catches J.T. as he’s heading out of the building after morning skate. It was a quiet practice without J.T. filling every silence with his non-stop chatter.

“You were pretty quiet today.”

“Didn’t feel like chirping,” J.T. says shortly. It’s so unlike him; J.T. lives to shit talk, even at practice.

He’d been more than quiet lately though. He’s just barely been completing the drills, skating slower than normal, and he hasn’t taken any teasing shots at Henke or Pavs in days. It’s clear that his energy is at an all-time low.

Ryan grabs his elbow and physically steers J.T. until he’s pressed back against the wall, boxing him in with his body so he can’t escape, even as the twisting motion sends a sudden stab of pain through his abdomen. “Is everything okay with you and Jaeda at home? Seriously, J.T.”

For a long moment, he’s afraid that J.T. is going to lie to him, the way he’s been lying to everyone about how okay he is. But then, “She cries a lot at night,” J.T. says. His voice is pitched low, tired. He looks like he’s about to fall asleep in his hoodie. “I know that’s what babies do, but she wakes me up couple times a night.”

_Don’t_ , the little voice in Ryan’s head says, and out loud, he says, “You want me to help?”

“With what? You’re already taking care of her almost every day.”

“We could take turns at night. I could wake up to feed her until you’re good to go. You’re fucking dead on your feet, Millsy. You can barely make it through practice, let alone a full sixty tonight.”

“I nap before games.”

“Not enough. You’re getting what, three, four hours a night? And you spent our entire Florida roadie in your hotel room sleeping. A.V.’s gonna bench you if you get any worse. I told him you were just sick and he was talking about having the doctors eval you and report you as day-to-day if it’s that bad.”

J.T. screws up his face. “Shit, I look that bad?”

“Yeah. You do. Let me help out, yeah? I can take over feeding Jaeda sometimes so you can get a full night’s rest.” There’s still a worried pinch in J.T.’s brow, so Ryan adds, “I could crash at your place. You’ll be right next door the whole time. It’s just a temporary kinda thing.”

The worry clears, smoothed away by that little reassurance.

“Thanks, Mac,” J.T. whispers. He’s picking at a loose thread on his hoodie sleeve, but his shoulders look less tense already. Ryan realizes how close they are, how he can see the fan of J.T.’s eyelashes as he looks down, and he takes a step back.

_Don’t get too close_ , Ryan thinks, and he tries not to think about how it’s far, far too late for that.

 

He doesn’t shower at J.T.’s. Ryan has seen J.T. nearly naked like, hundreds of times over the years, but he feels weird seeing it in what is clearly J.T.’s personal space. Ryan has rules about this whole lusting over his teammate thing, damn it, and he’s careful about his boundaries.

J.T. sets him up on the couch, since the guest room is being used as the nursery, and a few weeks ago Brady had claimed the bed that was once in there. (Whatever it is that he and Jimmy are up to, Ryan never wants to know.) The couch is good enough for him, and Ryan isn’t picky after nearly a decade sleeping in hotel rooms in different NHL cities.

He makes sure that he arrives just before J.T. is getting ready for bed, bringing just a change of clothes for sleeping in and nothing else.

J.T. has a set of pillows propped up on his worn old couch. He’s shirtless, wearing just a pair of flannel sleep pants and bending over in the lamplight as he drops a blanket down to join the pillows. “If you need anything else, I have a some extra stuff in the closet.”

“I should be good. Jaeda’s probably gonna wake me up before I get too comfortable.” Ryan tries to laugh about it, but J.T. looks too comfortable like this, sleep-ready and barefoot in his living room. And shirtless. Definitely shirtless.

“Right. Um, thermostat is on the wall in the hallway if it gets too hot or cold. And you know where the bathroom is.”

“Yeah.”

J.T. continues to hover, looking awkward and unsure, like he suddenly doesn’t know how to act around Ryan now that Ryan is bedding down in his living room. It’s weird and Ryan doesn’t like it. He doesn’t know what to say to J.T.’s hovering, so he grabs the collar of his polo and pulls it over his head, reaching for the threadbare University of Wisconsin shirt he sleeps in.

“I’m uhh—I’m going to…bed. Night,” J.T. says, and then he turns quickly and heads to his room.

“Night,” Ryan calls after him. He pulls on the U of W shirt and smooths it down, reaching up to pat down his hair.

When he steps out of the bathroom after brushing his teeth, J.T.’s door is firmly closed. The door to Jaeda’s nursery is half-open and Ryan peeks in for a second, noting the tiny sleeping lump on the mattress. It’ll be hopefully a few hours before she wakes him.

The pillow smells like detergent, that faded smell that Ryan knows is from being stored in a closet for a while. It also smells faintly like J.T., and Ryan tries not to think about J.T. pressing his face to its surface, sleepy and warm and tangled in his covers. He closes his eyes and presses the heels of his palms to them, pushing that image out of his head.

At some point, sleep must sneak up on him, because he’s woken by the now-familiar sound of a baby crying through the baby monitor.

“You’re really loud for someone so small,” he tells Jaeda as he opens the microwave and puts the bottle in with one hand.

Jaeda only cries louder.

“I know, you want Millsy, don’t you? He’s sleeping. You don’t want to wake him tonight, or he’ll fall asleep during the game tomorrow.” He feels foolish talking to a baby as if she understands him, but Ryan is trying his best, okay? As the microwave heats the formula, he rocks Jaeda, trying to calm her down a little. It doesn’t really work.

Ryan glances at the darkened hallway, hoping that J.T. can’t hear the unbelievably loud wailing coming from his kid now. He yanks open the microwave door when it reads 0:01 and pulls Jaeda closer to his chest so he can free his wrist, which he uses to test a few drops of formula before popping the nipple in her mouth. She quiets immediately, and Ryan relaxes and looks around.

He’s never been in J.T.’s place overnight. The kitchen is familiar, though the only light right now comes from the bar lights and the open microwave. There’s a cactus of some kind dying on the windowsill. It probably came from some event during training camp, and it looks like it hasn’t been touched since, which knowing J.T., is probably a pretty good guess. When Jaeda is done with her bottle, Ryan puts it in the sink and fills a mug with water, pouring it into the cactus’s pot.

In his arms, Jaeda sneezes.

Ryan, eyes still on the cactus, says “Bless you” and absently kisses the top of her head.

He wants to put her down and get back to sleep, but he forces himself to walk around with her until she burps up some of the milk onto the towel he placed over his shoulder. And then it’s back into the crib, and Ryan gratefully returns to the couch. This time, he’s too tired to worry about the smell of J.T. still clinging to his pillow.

Jaeda wakes him twice more throughout the night, and each time, it gets harder to get up. But Ryan is game because he signed up for this, and if J.T. wakes up at all, he doesn’t come out of his room, trusting that Ryan’s got it.

He dreams in snatches in between feedings, dreaming about hockey, about the playoffs, about home—Minnesota, not New York. He has one dream about playing for the Panthers, for some reason. And he dreams about J.T., pressed up behind him in bed, his sleepy voice in Ryan’s ear.

He wakes to J.T. shaking him by the shoulder. “Hey. Mac,” J.T. is whispering. “Practice soon.”

“Jay?”

“Fed her already. Was she okay last night?”

“Yeah, yeah. Got up three times, and she took a full bottle the last two times.”

“Great. Eva said she’s on her way. You wanna hit the shower first?”

Ryan props himself up on one elbow and blinks the sleep out of his eyes, which just gives him a great view of J.T.’s bare chest instead. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t know how nice it was, but it’s a good reminder anyway. He’s saved when J.T. straightens out of his half-squat and gives him a hand up.

“What’d you say?”

“I said do you wanna shower first. I only have one bathroom and it’s not exactly big enough for both of us. Not _together_ , I just mean—Uh. You should take the shower first.”

“Didn’t bring a change of clothes.”

J.T. jerks his chin in the direction of his bedroom. “You can borrow some clothes from me. Think we’re the same size, right? And you can use my shampoo and stuff too.”

“I um, didn’t bring a towel.”

“I should have a new set of them somewhere.”

Ryan really _could_ do with brushing his teeth, if nothing else. He hesitates, and then says, “Nah, I’ll shower and do everything at home.”

“You sure you don’t wanna carpool to the rink? It’s not a big deal if we both shower quickly.”

“No I…left something important at home, so I’m gonna go back. See you at practice.”

“Okay.” There’s the sound of knocking at the front door, and J.T. looks around Ryan’s shoulder in the direction of the sound. “That’s Eva, I bet.”

“I’ll let her in.”

“Thanks, man. I’m gonna hop in the shower.”

Ryan lets the nanny in and closes the door quickly behind him, before he can hear the shower turn on. It’s bad enough to see J.T. come out of the showers after a game. He doesn’t need to think about J.T. wet and naked in his own home. Some thoughts are just asking for trouble.

 

December is wet and miserable. Jaeda catches a cold and cries the whole time she has it, for like two weeks straight, and she fights them every time they try to put her down for some sleep, getting fussy and unhappy whenever she’s not on the move.

Ryan and J.T. take turns carrying her around the apartment, rocking her in place whenever her face gets that pinched look that tells them she’s gearing up for another crying session. It’s like handling a ticking bomb. A tiny, loud, red-faced bomb that poops a lot and produces staggering amounts of baby snot.

At the end of the two weeks, J.T. has been to the doctor four times, and he’s even taken Jaeda to bed with him, sleeping with her so he doesn’t have to get up every hour or so to check on her when she starts crying. Ryan spends those nights at his own place, quietly stressing. He knows there’s nothing he can do about baby colds except to let them run their course, but that doesn’t mean he has to _like_ it.

He gets to J.T.’s apartment after practice one day to find the nanny smiling for the first time all week, looking pleased. “She’s sleeping fine now,” Eva says. “I think she’s better today.”

J.T. looks so fucking relieved. “Oh fuck. Thank god. Thanks Eva.”

Eva says bye to Ryan as J.T. goes to check up on his daughter.

They crash out on the couch after, and J.T. leans his head against Ryan’s shoulder, eyes closed. “I’m fuckin’ tired, man,” he mumbles. Ryan puts an arm around him and gives him a half-hearted noogie.

He can’t believe that they’re already three months into semi-successfully taking care of a human baby using only google and frantic calls to their moms. Three months in, and who knows how many months before J.T. decides he’s independent enough to take care of Jaeda on his own.

J.T. snuggles closer, breath coming warm against Ryan’s neck. “You coming back this week? I’m putting Jaeda back in her crib. Spent all week worrying I was gonna roll over and crush her in my sleep.”

“Yeah, okay. I think your couch misses me.”

“Sweet.”

And Ryan would love to sit there forever maybe, J.T.’s head a heavy weight against him, but he’s hungry and they have things to do. They’ve got the Kings game tonight at MSG, then an overnight bus ride to Boston for the back-to-back. He pats J.T.’s shoulder and says, “We should get something to eat.”

“Takeout,” J.T. groans. “Let’s just do takeout. I’m feeling lazy.”

Ryan gets up to get the menus from J.T.’s takeout drawer, and J.T. falls sideways on the couch, stretching out to take up all the space. He doesn’t answer when Ryan asks if he wants Chinese or Mexican. Ryan orders Chinese, J.T.’s usual, and then he wakes J.T. when the food arrives and they eat on the couch with a movie playing in the background.

It’s nice. It’s domestic. And it’s getting harder for Ryan to remind himself that it’s only temporary.

 

J.T. scores a beauty against the Bruins, catches Ryan’s long outlet pass for a gorgeous deke and a breakaway goal. He spins and points at Ryan, his grin huge, eyes lit up with the excitement of pulling ahead 2-0 in a tough building.

Ryan pops his mouthguard into his glove and presses their heads together for a second, pats him on the helmet a few times, and says, breathless, “Atta boy, Millsy.”

“Nice pass,” J.T. says. “Fucking beauty pass right there.”

It’s perfect, perfect, perfect. Ryan closes his eyes against the twinge of pain and skates back to the bench.

 

When they get back from Boston, Ryan offers to take the first couple of nights, so J.T. can catch up on the sleep he wasn’t getting while Jaeda was sick. J.T. doesn’t argue, just agrees sleepily and wanders into his bedroom without closing the door behind him.

He’s first to Jaeda when she starts crying that night, and by the time Ryan fights himself free of his blanket and stumbles into the nursery, J.T. has already lifted her out of her crib.

“Thought tonight was my night,” Ryan says muzzily.

“Heard her crying.” J.T. sounds exhausted, but he doesn’t hand her over. “Door was open.”

“You didn’t close it.”

J.T. only hums, rocking his daughter in place even though his eyes have shut on their own. Ryan pulls her out of his arms and he opens them, blinking at him. “Mac—”

“I got it. Go back to bed.”

“She’s crying.”

“Yeah, cause she’s hungry. Go to sleep, Millsy. She’ll still be here when you wake up.”

But J.T. only follows Ryan into the kitchen, yawning and watching through half-open eyes as Ryan preps a bottle, warms it, and feeds Jaeda. He leans against the counter and then he reaches for Jaeda once Ryan is done burping her.

Ryan doesn’t hand her over. “You’re about to fall asleep on the counter.”

“Mac, c’mon.”

“In the morning, when your eyes are actually open.”

J.T. keeps up a quiet grumbling as he drifts behind Ryan all the way to the nursery, watching with sleepy attention as Ryan puts Jaeda back in her crib and tucks her in. His hovering would be funny if he didn’t look like he’d fall over at any second.

Ryan turns to J.T. and begins pushing him toward the door. “Bedtime for you now.”

“Wait wait Jay’s not asleep.”

“She’s asleep. That’s just a shadow on her face. C’mon Millsy, I don’t think she needs 24 hour supervision anymore.”

“She was sick,” J.T. says petulantly.

“Okay yeah, you win overprotective dad of the year—”

“What if she gets sick again?” J.T. mumbles against Ryan’s shoulder as Ryan physically drags him out of the nursery and back into his own bedroom. The question comes out as barely more than a huff of air, and Ryan is too, too tired to answer. “Mac. Maaaaac. What if she’s sick again,” J.T. says, fucking insistent.

“Then I’ll call the doctor again.”

J.T. lets out a long, drawn out sound that might be agreement, and he goes down easy when Ryan tips him onto the bed. But he’d wrapped an arm around Ryan’s neck at some point, and as he falls, he drags Ryan down with him in a tangle of arms and legs and bare skin.

Ryan lands awkwardly on top, and there’s a little gasp from underneath him. “Ow,” J.T. whispers.

“Sorry,” he whispers back.

“Mmhmm,” J.T. says, arms still around him, and closes his eyes.

“Hey wait, don’t—”

But J.T. clearly doesn’t give a fuck about Ryan being on top of him and has decided to go right back to sleep. Ryan sighs and works to untangle himself as best he can, trying to touch J.T. as little as possible, ignoring the feel of J.T.’s legs and how solid his chest had felt under his face. There’s definitely a time and a place, Ryan tells himself, and it’s really _not_ with his teammate.

He wishes J.T. wore a shirt to bed.

Eventually, he manages to break J.T.’s hold and roll to one side, the side closer to the wall, since J.T. is one of those rare people who prefers to sleep with his bed against a wall. And then Ryan thinks about climbing over his teammate’s half-naked, sleeping body and crossing the entire room _and_ the hallway to get back to the couch, and he muffles a groan in the spare pillow.

He lays there for another moment, thinking. The couch is kind of lumpy, to be honest. And the blankets and pillows are fine—They’re fine! But the bed is really nice and actually gives his back support and doesn’t smell like pizza or the takeout of the week. And it’s 3 in the morning.

It’ll only be a short walk back to the couch. Like 30 seconds tops, Ryan tells himself. He’ll just close his eyes for a second, enjoy this snatched moment and gather his strength before he has to sit up and go back.

 

Someone is kicking Ryan.

“Stop that,” he says, except it comes out as “Stuhh,” eyes still closed and face half-pressed to his pillow. The kicking stops, and he drowses for a couple more minutes, enjoying the feel of one leg tangled with his, hot skin and hard muscle and the flutter of someone else’s heart beating against his chest.

“Heavy,” he hears the someone mumble underneath him. “M’lungs.”

He rolls a little, onto the cooler side of the pillow, but then the sun’s on his face and he’s not touching J.T. anymore.

The breath freezes in Ryan’s lungs, and he sits up quickly, recognizing the walls, the mess of clothes on the floor, the shoes kicked over at the foot of the bed and the furniture arranged around the room. And of course next to him on the bed, J.T. on his stomach, somehow back asleep.

His heart is starting to slow from its crazy racing. Okay. This is okay. It’s not like they did anything last night. They were just tired. Both of them, tired, and they’d just fallen asleep on the same surface. It’s like falling asleep on the bus or the plane next to your seat partner.

No big deal. Nothing happened.

He has to climb over J.T.’s legs to get out of the bed, but J.T. doesn’t wake, just rolls over and burrows deeper under the covers. It’s really cute, and Ryan almost stops to touch a stray tuft of hair sticking out behind his ear.

Jaeda is awake and alert in her crib when Ryan checks in on her, her sweet eyes wide open and following his movement as he leans over her.

“Hi Jay,” he whispers. Jaeda makes a little baby noise at him, and she moves her arm in that jerking, uncoordinated way babies do, one tiny fist touching his face when he leans in to pick her up. Ryan can’t resist kissing her nose. “You want to eat yet or no?” Her mouth opens, but no sound comes out, and then she yawns. “Okay let’s go get you something to eat.”

By the time she’s sleeping again, the sun has fully risen. They’d normally be getting up for morning practice about now, but today it’s being held later in the day, A.V. telling them to get some rest during their short three-day break.

The couch is still unmade, blankets tossed aside from Ryan’s brief stay on it last night before he copped an accidental nap in J.T.’s bed. He should return to the couch. He really should. Last night could be blamed on exhaustion and stress, but the sun is up now, and there’s no hungry baby clouding his judgement.

The door to J.T.’s room is still half-open, an invitation, and Ryan almost doesn’t think as he pushes in and walks, dreamlike, to the bed.

J.T. has apparently decided that it’s too hot under the covers, and he’s rolled onto his back and freed one arm enough to push one side of the covers down to his waist. Ryan can see that arm, the curves of J.T.’s bicep and shoulder and pec and one nipple exposed to the air. He gets the very sudden urge to—to drop down to the bed, to put his lips at J.T.’s throat and work his way across that shoulder and down the half of his chest that he can see, before he pulls back the covers the rest of the way and can turn to the rest of him, the whole of him, J.T. sleepy and vulnerable and, in the fantasy, smiling up at Ryan in that goofy way of his with his eyes squinting against the morning light.

It’s such a sudden _want_ , almost physical and blinding, and Ryan has to swallow and pull his eyes away from the rise and fall of J.T.’s chest until he feels like he can touch him without falling apart.

When he feels like himself again, he grabs the shoulder closest to him—the bare one—and gives it a good shake.

The snoring cuts off into an short gasp, and then J.T. is shooting up in bed, nearly hitting Ryan with his arm. “Jaeda—” he says, wildly.

“It’s me,” Ryan says.

“Oh.”

“Did you think I was—Never mind. Jaeda’s fine. I checked on her just now and fed her and she’s sleeping now.”

J.T. relaxes, and then his eyes widen again when Ryan crawls over his legs and into the still-warm, empty spot next to him. Ryan is absolutely not thinking about how this spot in J.T.’s bed feels like it was made for his body.

“What’re you doing?” J.T. asks, sounding spooked.

“’M going back to sleep.”

Ryan pulls the covers up to his shoulders, back turned to J.T. and resolutely telling himself not to roll over and look at him. There’s a long pause, and then he feels the bed shift as J.T. lays back down, and the covers move as he readjusts them. They’re both carefully not touching each other.

“D’you sleep here last night?” J.T. whispers.

“Mmhmm.”

And then Ryan can’t hear anything but J.T.’s shallow breathing, soft and quick the way it gets when he’s thinking too hard and not actually saying what he’s thinking, for once. Ryan wants to say something, but he can’t figure out what’s going on in J.T.’s mind, so he has no idea how to approach this. He’s still thinking about it when he drifts off.

 

In the locker room, J.T. jumps when Ryan touches his elbow.

“You need me over tonight?” Ryan asks. Just in case things have changed, after the waking up together yesterday thing.

J.T. doesn’t hold his eyes. “If you want, I guess. No pressure or anything.”

“’s not a problem, you know that.” Ryan adjusts the strap of his bag. “You got plans for Christmas next week?”

“I’m taking Jaeda back home so we can spend Christmas at my dad’s like I always do. I really want her first Christmas to be you know, really nice, sort of in the same place where I grew up. Want her to be surrounded by her family.”

Ryan nods, even as he feels his chest tighten with the sudden stab of hurt. “Right, yeah. Makes sense,” he says, calm, neutral, understanding. Ryan McDonagh is nothing if not that.

 

Zucc corners him in his own kitchen when Ryan breaks from the group in the living room and ducks inside for a glass of eggnog.

“You and Millsy okay?”

“What?” Ryan says, pretending like he hasn’t been wondering the exact same thing.

The Santa hat that Zucc is wearing makes him less intimidating, plus the whole being a 5’7” Norwegian hobbit thing, but he still manages to put his hands on his hips and puff himself up enough to level an impressive glare at Ryan, considering the 7 inch height difference.

It’s not scary, but it’s Zucc, one of his oldest friends on the team. Ryan sighs and puts the eggnog back on the counter. “I don’t know,” he says honestly. “He’s been a bit weird since we woke up in bed together the other day. Not,” he adds hastily when he sees Zucc’s eyes fly open, “that we did anything. We were just tired and—It’s a long story.”

“So you and Millsy.” Zucc gives him a toothy grin. “For real now, eh?”

“No. No way.” The eggnog must be like 90% whiskey, but Ryan is glad for the mouthful he takes. At least then he could blame the burning heat inside him on the alcohol. “It’s definitely not like that. And anyway, things have been weird this week.”

“It’s okay, Trucker. We fix this for you.”

And _now_ Ryan is scared. “Wait, what do you mean. Zuccy, hey—Who’s we? What do you mean you’re gonna fix it?”

He finds out an hour later, when the guys are gathered in a loose half-circle around the Christmas tree that Ryan put up a few days ago, opening the gifts they got each other for the Secret Santa that Grabs and Nasher arranged. Kreids thanks him for the Vonnegut book that Ryan got him—not Hemingway, because Ryan is secretly convinced that Kreids owns every Hemingway book in existence—and then Ryan unwraps a very nice cologne from a nervous Buch.

There’s one more small lumpy package at the very back of the tree, and Haysie ducks under the lowest branches to drag it out, grinning and holding it up for the rest of the boys to see.

“Look, this one’s for Jaeda. From Santa.”

“Alright, who was Santa,” J.T. laughs.

He’s got Jaeda in his lap, so it’s Haysie who rips open the terrible wrapping job and pulls out an infant’s Rangers jersey. Ryan’s seen the baby jerseys before in the arena store, but it’s ridiculously small in Haysie’s big hands. Haysie’s eyes are huge. “It’s Mac’s jersey!”

“Aww, Mac,” Brady says, putting a hand over his heart.

Ryan’s laugh cuts off, and he stares at it, confused. “Wait, I didn’t buy—”

“Look, it’s got a little C on it!”

“Captain McDonagh!”

“Awww, Trucker, you’re so fuckin’ adorable.”

“Watch your language,” Henke says mildly over his whiskey eggnog.

J.T. is already pulling the jersey over Jaeda’s head, which is difficult since she keeps waving her arms around and squirming. But he gets it on her eventually, and then he sits her up on his lap again, holding her steady and smiling cheesily so Mika can take a picture.

It’s really, really cute, and Ryan’s heart is melting at the tiny stenciled _McDonagh 27_ on not-his-baby, but, “Shouldn’t she be wearing Millsy’s jersey? Since he’s her dad?”

No one hears him except Kreids, who gives him a friendly punch to the shoulder and tells him to shut up and take the W.

“What W,” Ryan is about to say, but then J.T. looks away from Mika and over to him.

“Thanks, Mac,” J.T. says, almost shyly, and Ryan shuts the hell up.

 

(“You think Millsy liked his gift?” Haysie asks, when Ryan is in the kitchen again, shoving plastic cups and plates in the trash. His teammates seem to love catching him in the kitchen.

“His Secret Santa? Who had him—Quickie? I don’t remember what Jesper got him.”

“No, not his Secret Santa, Jesus, Mac. I mean the jersey for Jaeda.”

“That was you?”

“That was a couple of us. Me, Jim, Brady, Zucc, Mika, and Nasher. It was Nasher’s idea, actually. He thought Millsy would like it.”

Ryan stares at his hands, moving mechanically as he shovels garbage into the bag. “It was nice,” he finally says. He smiles at Haysie. “Thanks for that. It was really nice of you.”

“You’re welcome, Dad,” Haysie says.)

 

Their last game before the holiday break is a 2-3 loss to Toronto at home, J.T.’s third-period goal not enough to equalize. Depressing note to go out on, but being 19-13-4 isn’t the end of the world. They’re in the first wild card spot in the East.

Ryan goes home, like St. Paul home, and he’s grateful for the chance to rest and recover from injury. He spends time with family and friends, and he tries not to miss Jaeda or J.T.

He’s not sure he’s all that successful.

 

“Hey sweetheart,” Ryan whispers into Jaeda’s head of soft baby hair. “How was Christmas?”

Behind him, J.T. is making himself his usual pre-game meal. “I think she got kinda restless over the break. I don’t know, like my mom loved her and I’m sure Jaeda liked spending time with grandma, but she was really fussy. She probably missed you. You’re always really good with her.”

Ryan cradles her a little closer as he paces, tucking her body against his chest, Jaeda’s head resting in the crook of his neck. He hides his smile against her tiny shoulder.

“Hey did you want me to do tonight or did you wanna take over feeding her?” J.T. asks.

Jaeda smells like baby powder and fabric softener and formula, plus that smell that babies all seem to have. Ryan presses his face against hers for another second, and then he says, “I’ll do tonight. Missed you too, Jay.”

 

The Rangers host their last practice of the year in the Mets’ Citi Field, 40,000 empty seats in the stands. It’s cold and empty when they walk off the ice, but it’ll be packed tomorrow when the Sabres are in New York to host the Winter Classic on the first day of the new year.

“Go out and celebrate, but don’t go crazy tonight, boys. We got an early start tomorrow,” A.V. says before dismissing them.

A couple of the guys get together for dinner, and as they’re splitting the bill, Quickie turns to Ryan and says, “Hey Trucker, you’re coming to the bar with us, right?”

“Yeah yeah.” Dinner for Ryan had been split between conversation with Staalsy and long, wistful stares at J.T. as he ate and joked around with Mika, but he vaguely remembers something about a team get-together. “What’s the plan for tonight?”

It’s Staals who answers. “Gonna be drinks, opportunities to be wheelin’, probably some puckering up later on. Jimmy already texted us the address of the bar that him and Haysie are at. It’s in the group chat.”

“We should hustle. Jimbo’s waiting,” Brady says.

And Ryan does like hanging out with the boys, though he’s not sure if he wants to watch Jimmy and Brady make eyes at each other all night while Haysie gets fucking plastered. But team bonding, right? Everyone’s gonna be there except the guys with families to get home to. He stands and reaches for his coat. “Yeah, I’m in.”

“Great!” Quickie’s smile is blinding. “You coming too, right Millsy?”

When Ryan turns to look, J.T. already has his coat on, and he’s pulling his winter hat over his ears. “I gotta get home, actually,” he says. “Cause Jaeda’s gonna be missing me, and she needs someone to watch her and no one wants to babysit for New Years.”

“Aww, Millsy.”

“Sorry bud.” J.T. shrugs. “No can do.”

“Okay then. Come on, Trucker. Let’s go.”

Ryan holds the door for everyone on their way out the restaurant, and he doesn’t watch J.T.’s tail lights turn in the opposite direction and disappear into the distance, in the direction of his apartment.

The bar is loud and crowded, couples and singles coming in for a quick drink or a place to keep warm while waiting for midnight. Most of the team is already there waiting when Ryan and the last of the guys walk in. There are half-empty glasses and bottles in front of them, the Wisconsin-Miami football game is on the TVs, and Christmas music is blasting from the hidden speakers.

Ryan stops by the bar to order a drink, and then he makes his way over to the boys.

“Big Mac, Mac Truck!” Kreids says, dragging Ryan into the seat next to him. “Where’s your better half?”

“Went home to be with the baby.”

“Eh, you’re the better half actually. Sorry J.T.”

“Mmm.” Ryan takes a sip of his beer, barely tasting it. He doesn’t bother saying that J.T. isn’t anything but his teammate. It’s not like his feelings haven’t been projected all over the place since Jaeda’s arrival and Ryan started spending nearly every second at J.T.’s apartment, and his teammates aren’t all stupid despite some of the shit they get up to.

Across the table from him, Jimmy takes a sip of Brendan’s gin and tonic and makes a face. “Ugh, this tastes like ass.”

Brendan elbows him in the ribs. “ _You_ would know.”

“Excuse you, I don’t eat ass. Brady’s the one who—”

Ryan tunes them out, for everybody’s sake. He takes another drink of his beer, which is starting to sweat, and wipes his damp fingers on his shirt.

Kreids gets up to get another drink, and he’s replaced by Haysie, who immediately launches into a long spiel about the Pats and the upcoming NFL playoffs. Ryan splits his attention between Haysie’s excited near-yelling and the Orange Bowl footage on the TVs. Wisconsin is winning, 27-21 going into the fourth quarter.

When the football game ends (Wisconsin Badgers win 34-24), the bartender changes the channel to footage of Times Square, just half a city away and packed with crowds. The temperature’s in the single digits tonight, with wind, and Ryan can’t imagine staying out there for 12 hours waiting to watch the ball drop. His mind drifts to J.T.’s apartment, which he knows is warm, warm enough for J.T. to probably be wandering around in sweatpants and a t-shirt as he puts Jaeda to bed.

In Ryan’s imagination, it’s the USA shirt that J.T. got the year he played for the U20 American team that won World Juniors gold. J.T. was wearing it last week. That shirt is worn thin after five years and who knows how many laundry cycles, a faded gray with cracked lettering, and it had stretched tight over J.T.’s shoulders and chest. It made Ryan want to run a hand down his back, and Ryan had grabbed the diaper bag and offered to change Jaeda so he wouldn’t do just that.

In the bar, Haysie hooks his chin over Ryan’s shoulder and pats his face, tipsy and handsy. “Spacing out already, huh Mac?”

Ryan takes a quick drink from his bottle, so he doesn’t have to answer right away. “Just thinking about the game tomorrow,” he lies. “Big crowd, gonna be a big game.”

“It’s gonna be good. Why’re you stressing? You never get psyched out before regular season games.”

“Winter Classic’s just, you know, a big deal.”

“Yeah I hear you, but you know what you _really_ need?” Ryan raises his eyebrows, and Haysie continues. “You need to unwind some.”

“I’m unwinding right now.” He tips his beer bottle in Haysie’s direction.

“Yeah no, I mean we need to get you laid. Like _so_ laid. Millsy’s obviously not tapping that, which like I don’t really get? But whatever, we know he’s fucking stupid.” Haysie pats Ryan’s face again. “You’re like always taking care of us or taking care of the baby and you gotta get some action too, you know? Gotta flex what you got.”

Ryan has to laugh. “Kevin, it’s okay, seriously.”

“What if your dick fucking…dries up and falls off cause you’re not getting any?”

“I don’t think it works like that, but I’ll let you know if that happens.”

“Mac,” Haysie says, so serious that he almost sounds sober. “You’re gonna die of blue balls and then we’re not gonna have a captain for the Winter Classic tomorrow.”

“Are we talking about Mac’s dick?” Jimmy chips in. “Cause I wasn’t really trying to look, in the locker room, but—”

“I think I’m gonna go home, actually,” Ryan says.

Haysie pouts. “Aww, Mac. Sorry, we’ll stop talking about your dick. No dicks at the dinner table, guys.”

“No, I’m just kinda tired.”

“Seriously? It’s like not even ten o’clock.”

“We have an afternoon game tomorrow, and I’ve had a bit of a headache all day.” Ryan forces himself to fake exhaustion in his smile as he stands and grabs his coat.

Jimmy’s eyes are still wide at the abrupt end to the conversation, but he nods and says, “Make sure you at least stay awake for midnight though, or set an alarm for 11:45. Wouldn’t want to miss the new year.”

The boys all wish him a happy new year and tell him to get some rest tonight. Ryan thanks them and pushes out into the night, taking in a lungful of freezing air so cold it hurts his chest. It’ll be worse tomorrow when he’s sweating and gasping for breath on the outdoor rink. It also clears his head though, and he gets into his car with a single-mindedness that was lacking all night.

He has a key by now, and he doesn’t give the front door more than a quick knock before turning the key in the lock and walking in, shedding coat and scarf and hat as he goes.

The apartment is just as warm as he knew it would be. The overhead lights in the living room are dimmed, the Christmas lights on, and the TV is on, though there’s no one there watching. Light streams in from the kitchen.

“Mac?” J.T.’s voice comes from the direction of the hallway, and Ryan hears his quick footsteps getting closer. When he rounds the corner and sees him, he grins. “Thought I heard you coming in.”

He’s wearing sweats and the ugly sweater that he wore to the team holiday party. It’s lumpy and colorful and says _MERRY FUCKING X-MAS_ and has a drunk reindeer on it. It’s a good thing Jaeda can’t read yet.

Ryan opens his mouth, but he has nothing to say, no excuse for why he mindlessly drove here.

“I was pretty bummed about spending the night alone,” J.T. says, completely unaware of Ryan’s thoughts. “So I was gonna watch _Die Hard_ and have some of the really nice whiskey my dad got me for Christmas. I know, I’m really fucking boring and lame now that I’m a dad.”

The only thing Ryan can think to say is, “Jay might be a little young to understand Bruce Willis.”

“She’s asleep already.”

“Oh.” Even in the unflattering sweater, J.T. looks good, the little white Christmas lights getting caught up in his hair and in his eyes, which Ryan didn’t even think was possible outside of Haysie’s cheesy romance books. One beer was definitely not enough. “Where’s the whiskey?”

Which is how they end up curled up on the couch together, J.T.’s bare feet tucked against Ryan’s thigh as he talks his way through the movie, which is something that would drive Ryan crazy if it were anyone but J.T. The bottle of whiskey is on the table and there’s a glass in each of their hands. J.T. was right; it _is_ a really nice bottle.

It also means that he’s pleasantly hot now, and he’s focusing less on John McClane and more on the way J.T.’s shoulders shake when he laughs.

At 11:55, they pause the movie and switch to the live cam in Times Square. Ryan has watched the Times Square Ball Drop every year he’s been in New York, but always with a group of people or a girlfriend. Never on a couch alone with the guy he’s raising a baby with, the guy he’s sort of in love with.

J.T. drops the remote and refills his own glass, then he leans over and pours a healthy measure of whiskey into Ryan’s glass, missing the rim a bit at the end and getting some on Ryan’s fingers and lap.

“Shit, sorry ‘bout that.”

“S’ok.” Ryan switches the glass to his other hand and sucks the whiskey off his wet fingers. He does it quickly and thoughtlessly, eyes on the TV and the clock in the corner of the screen counting down the last 60 seconds.

The bottle makes a loud sound when J.T. puts it back on his glass-topped table. When Ryan looks over, J.T.’s fingers are clenched around his glass, white-knuckled, and his face is red even in the weak light. He must’ve had more to drink than Ryan realized.

The crowd on the TV starts to count down the last ten…nine…eight…

At the bar, they must be getting ready to pop a dozen bottles of champagne. Ryan slings an arm around J.T.’s shoulder and knocks their glasses together, saying, “Cheers, Millsy. Happy New Year.”

They’re very close now, just inches away from each other. Ryan feels his heart kick into overdrive as J.T. hesitates and then leans even closer, face pink and breath warmed by booze, his eyes bright and determined and still shining a little in the light coming from the TV and those twinkling Christmas decorations. J.T.’s breathing is uneven, but he says, “Happy New Year, Mac.”

Ryan cups the back of his head and—

—and as the countdown hits zero, he tips J.T.’s head down so he can press a kiss to his hair, light-hearted and teasing. He hears J.T. make a soft, surprised noise as he does, a huffed-out breath of laughter against his collarbone, and J.T.’s fingers clench in the back of Ryan’s shirt for a second before he lets go.

 

“Sorry about the spill,” J.T. whispers across the inches of darkness between them.

“It’s _your_ couch,” Ryan whispers back.

He can feel J.T. shifting, probably trying to get comfortable. “Yeah, but you’ve been sleeping on it, and I feel bad for fucking soaking everything. I uh, I wasn’t expecting for you to, at midnight—”

“It’s fine, Millsy. It’s not like you dropped your glass on purpose.”

“Yeah.” It’s so quiet in the room that Ryan can hear J.T.’s breathing. “Fuck, that was really good whiskey, too.”

“I’ll buy you another bottle. I drank like half of it tonight.”

“You don’t have to. But I’m not gonna say no if you wanna do this again.”

“We’ll do it All Star break or something if you let me pick the movie next time.”

“Deal.” A little rustle, and the blankets move as J.T. tosses around some more. “Thanks for coming over tonight, Mac,” he says, hushed. “It was real nice, really. Like, way less depressing than I thought it was gonna be when I thought I’d be sitting there all alone on new year’s like some schmuck.”

And now it makes Ryan sad to think about J.T. sitting alone and watching the Ball Drop with no one for company but his sleeping baby and ¾ of a bottle of very nice booze. He hopes J.T. can hear the sincerity in his voice when he says, “It’s no problem.”

They lapse into silence, neither of them sure whether they should keep the conversation going when they should definitely be sleeping. It’s a little weird talking in the dark, facing the ceiling, a careful foot or two of space between their bodies. It’s so…formal.

But other than sleeping or talking, there’s not much they can do in bed besides…Well, that way lies madness.

Ryan lays very still on his back and tries not to think about almost kissing J.T. an hour ago. Theoretically, it’s not too late; he could still roll onto his side, prop himself up on one elbow and lean over to catch J.T.’s mouth with his own. Against his will, he starts to imagine it: J.T.’s little groan of pleasure as Ryan deepens the kiss, the feel of him sliding a warm hand up Ryan’s back, underneath his shirt, and pulling him closer. And then his mind flashes lightning-fast to J.T. shifting, letting his legs fall open and pulling Ryan between them, and the heat of it all, quiet and furtive and almost shameful, knowing that their baby is sleeping next door.

Like he said, madness. Dangerous, tempting madness.

He always knew that he gets horny when he’s had pretty much anything but beer. College was proof of that. The whiskey was a bad idea.

It’s been several years since Ryan’s had a real new year’s resolution, and he’s wondering now if he should’ve decided on something for this year, like _get better at dealing with the J.T.-related blue balls_. He’s 28, for fuck’s sake. He’s a goddamn NHL veteran, not a blushing 18-year-old rookie beating off every two seconds to the thought of his teammate.

He stays on his side of the bed, hands relaxed at his sides even as he wants to clench them or like, shove them down his shorts. Next to him, J.T.’s breathing is slow and steady, too even-paced to be real sleep.

_I hope I don’t get wood tomorrow cause that’ll be real awkward_ , Ryan thinks, and that’s the last anxious, exhausted, half-aroused thought he has before he drops off.

He wakes up once, at fuck knows o’clock, still dark out, and has to climb over J.T. to get to the bathroom. And then he checks on Jaeda and finding her awake, decides to feed her before she starts crying. When he gets back, he shoves J.T. over so he can crawl into the vacated spot, and J.T. makes an unhappy noise and rolls back until he’s tucked under Ryan’s chin, too hot and starting to sweat. It’s stupidly easy to fall asleep again.

Ryan wakes up in the morning with the mother of all boners and J.T.’s sleeping body pressed against every inch of him, promising all sorts of things that Ryan absolutely cannot think about. Like, at all.

The best that he can hope for is that J.T. wakes because of the sound of Ryan falling out of bed and not because of the dick that Ryan had pressed against his ass two seconds before falling out of bed.

“Hey,” J.T. says, voice sleep-rough and sending hot and cold shivers racing down Ryan’s back. He peers over the edge of the mattress, hair sticking up on one side. “Morning, Mac. Uh, why’re you on the floor?”

“Fell,” Ryan says. “I’m gonna…go brush my teeth.”

What a way to start the new year.

J.T. scores the overtime winner in the Winter Classic and gets an ass slap from nearly every one of their teammates, and Ryan pats him carefully on the shoulder, which seems the safest option.

 

January brings snow and a brutal record for the Rangers.

They can’t string together a win streak, going on multiple three-game losing skids in the 12 games they play during the month. Ryan talks more than he ever has in the room, trying to keep the team’s spirit up, even as they give up soft goals and have defensive breakdowns, falling into multi-goal holes early and often.

He limps off the ice after practices, and then he takes a deep breath and squares his shoulders and forces himself to walk normally into the room, to face their coaches and the disappointment of 22 of his boys.

It’s not the end of the season, but it’s an ugly record for a team that’s supposed to be—for a team that’s just not supposed to be like this.

When he gets home from the practice rink, he stops only long enough to do some laundry before grabbing some more clothes and heading over to see Jaeda.

Ryan spends every night of the month at J.T.’s even when it’s not his turn to wake up for feedings. He always makes sure that he’s sleeping on the couch, because J.T.’s room is definitely, hundred percent off limits now, and he has a hard time thinking about that bed without remembering his two nights in it and how easy it would’ve been to pin J.T. to the sheets and—

And ruin everything.

J.T. falls asleep on the couch once, both of them unwinding after a hard-fought home game, and he looks so peaceful that Ryan doesn’t stop to think about his own personal rules before he finds himself bending over him, lifting him with some difficulty. J.T.’s a pretty big guy, but it’s not far to his bedroom, and Ryan forces himself to not look at the bed as he staggers in.

As he crosses the room, J.T. half-wakes in his arms and does this nuzzling thing, rubbing his stubble against the most sensitive part of Ryan’s neck, which is pretty much directly connected to his dick. Ryan almost drops him.

“Mmm?” J.T. says, mouth damp against skin.

“Go back to sleep,” Ryan tells him and lowers him onto the bed. He works the covers out from underneath J.T.’s body and drops them over him, and J.T. immediately rolls until he’s wrapped in them, looking like a Millsy burrito.

There’s a welcoming space on the bed next to him, plenty of room for another body.

Ryan forces himself to turn, shutting the door behind him and leaning on it for a second, eyes closed, one hand over that still-tingling spot on his neck and the other hand pressed to the front of his sleep shorts.

It takes him another couple minutes to muster up the will to go back to the couch. He jerks off very quietly and very very guiltily, under the covers like he’s 16 again, eyes closed in the dark and mind replaying the feel of J.T.’s stubble over and over before moving onto thinking about how that would feel between his thighs. When he comes, he has to clench his teeth and hold his breath to avoid making any sound, mind whiting out with pleasure. And then he’s left gasping, a mess on his hands, with a feeling of equal parts satisfaction and shame.

 

“Is this like a Catholic guilt thing? Cause Millsy’s not bad looking and like, you have needs even when you pretend you’re a robot,” Step says.

“It’s not the—” Ryan lowers his voice, cupping his hand around his mouth, “ _wanting to fuck him_ part thing that’s bad. It’s everything else.”

“Why? Henke told me about it. You guys are so domestic. It’s adorable.”

Ryan sighs into the phone and watches as Jaeda, on her belly, grabs for a squeaky toy. “It’s not like that,” he says.

“Well you know everyone is always saying that _Ryan McDonagh is a great stay-at-home defenseman_ …”

“You know what they mean.”

“Yeah, that you’re good at staying at home, huh. Taking care of your side of the ice…and your little baby. Sorry, J.T.’s baby,” he adds, when he hears Ryan’s inhaled breath. “Half your baby. That her I’m hearing?”

“Yeah,” Ryan says, and picks her up, not at all sorry when she drops the toy with one final squeak. Jaeda presses her face to his shoulder and immediately tries to put his shirt in her mouth. Ryan lets her, ignoring the big wet spot he’s getting. “Millsy’s out right now, so I’m babysitting until he gets back.”

“Oh my god, Mac. It _is_ like that. You know you spend all your time with him, right? You’ve literally slept in his bed.”

“That was once.”

“ _Twice_ , and you can’t tell me you didn’t wake up and think about a little morning quickie under the covers with him.”

And Ryan can’t deny it, is the thing. That’s literally what he was thinking about when he woke up in J.T.’s bed, and he’s still thinking about it every morning when he wakes up sporting wood. His face grows hot as he thinks about the other night, which he absolutely didn’t tell Step about, but Derek has this _thing_ where he can sometimes read Ryan’s mind even from 2,000 miles away, could do it ever since they were teammates at Wisconsin, and this is way too close to home anyway.

“Don’t—Don’t fucking _say_ stuff like that, Step,” he chokes out.

“Mac. Mac Truck. Do you know you’re almost dating him, Trucker?”

In the silence that follows, Jaeda stops mouthing at Ryan’s shirt and coos, blinking up at him with her big bambi eyes. He smiles reflexively at her, and she smiles back, all gummy and a little crooked as she tries to figure out her facial muscles, but it’s still enough for him to want to hold her and never let go.

“Ryan?”

He forces himself to put Jaeda back in her crib, giving her the squeaky toy back. “This is temporary,” he finally says. “When she’s a little older, I’m gonna just go back to being one of the guys to them both.” He knows he sounds reluctant even as he says it.

“You sure you’re prepared to do that?”

“I’m _fine_ , Step,” Ryan says. “Shut up and tell me about Arizona.”

Derek tells him about Arizona.

Ryan goes home and sleeps at his own place that night, just to prove a point. He tells himself it’s for Derek’s benefit, but he’s also, just a little, wondering the same thing himself.

The point is sort of ruined when he realizes he left his toothbrush _and_ his shampoo at J.T.’s.

“Where were you?” J.T. asks the next day. “Jaeda missed you.”

Jaeda can barely lift her head on her own, so Ryan thinks she doesn’t really care who’s holding her bottle or carrying her. “Had to do some stuff at home,” he says. “It was just personal stuff.”

“Oh. Uh, makes sense, I guess. Hey, you wanna break in my new Switch before bed tonight? Went out and bought some games the other week and I’ve got no one to play with, so I thought it’d be a fun way to unwind after the game.”

Ryan hates that he’d noticed how cold his bed was last night. It’s January in New York. Of course it was cold. “Yeah, sure,” he says.

 

They’re four months into the season (25-24-5). Jaeda only wakes up once a night, something Ryan and J.T. are both grateful for. It’s been a hard month, mostly on the road, and the Rangers sit four points and three teams back from a wild card spot—in the bottom third of the league.

Ryan wakes up on February 8th to a public letter from president Glen Sather and general manager Jeff Gorton, released to the fans.

_“As we approach the trade deadline later this month…adding young, competitive players…This may mean we lose some familiar faces, guys we all care about and respect…”_

It’s obvious what Jeff and Sath mean. They might as well say rebuild in as many words.

So Ryan is expecting it when Jeff approaches him a few days later and asks for his 10-team no-trade list. Just in case, keeping their options open. “Yeah, sure, I’ll get that to you on Wednesday,” Ryan says, even though every bone in his body aches to stay in New York. They won’t be contenders, might not even make the playoffs after selling at the deadline, but there are things other than the Stanley Cup.

But Ryan is an NHL player, and he understands the sacrifices he’s meant to make.

He’s day-to-day with a hand injury and isn’t practicing with the team, which gives him plenty of time to think. It takes him a few nights to come up with his list, and then he submits it and waits for the dominos to fall.

He doesn’t tell J.T.

 

(“Jeff asked for my no-trade list last week,” Ryan says, quietly, almost hoping J.T. doesn’t hear. In his lap, Jaeda is shaking her rattle as hard as she can, almost masking the sound of his words.

J.T. hears him though. Ryan can tell, since J.T. suddenly stops talking about breaking his stick on his slapper in practice this morning, something that Ryan was only half-listening to. He knows by the sudden stiffness in J.T.’s back, the harsh little breath that he can’t control in time. J.T.’s hands go still for a second, and then he keeps working on the half-made sandwiches.

“I submitted today. Most of the leftovers are uh, mostly Eastern teams, but a few on the West Coast.”

Still nothing from J.T. _He can’t be that shocked_ , Ryan thinks. He must’ve known that a modified no-trade clause isn’t complete protection, and with the letter last week, it must’ve been obvious that Ryan would end up getting shopped. He’s the captain, but he’s also a pretty valuable bargaining chip.

“Let me guess. You’re not going to the Islanders.”

“They weren’t on my list. You never know.”

There’s the soft drumming of fingers on the counter, and then J.T. puts the finishing touches on his sandwich and puts everything else back in the fridge. Jaeda drops her rattle on the floor and grabs the chain around Ryan’s neck, giving it a few good yanks. Ryan winces.

“I just thought I should let you know,” he says. “For—For Jaeda.”

J.T. brings his plate over and puts it on the table next to Ryan. “You should eat. I’m gonna put Jay down for her nap.” He picks her up, and Ryan has to pry each of her fingers loose so she’ll let go of his chain.

As J.T. walks away, Ryan notices that there’s only enough food for one person on the plate—and they’re only sandwiches that Ryan likes. “You want me to make you something after I eat?”

“Not hungry,” J.T. says, without stopping or turning around. He’s still not looking at him, and Ryan doesn’t know whether he should be grateful for that or not.)

 

It’s hard to focus on the Knicks game, even with front row seats. The trade deadline’s in like, two days, and the rumors are at an all-time high, the way it always gets whenever teams are scouting each other heavily and GMs are seen looking in each other’s direction. With each passing day, Ryan half-expects to get that call from Jeff. He’s been jumping every time his phone rings.

Zucc slings an arm around him and peers at Ryan’s phone. “You’re not looking at the news again, are you?”

“No.” Ryan puts his phone away guiltily. “I’m just…checking.”

He looks back at the game in time to watch Kyrie Irving sink a three pointer for the Celtics, Haysie complaining loudly next to him about the Knicks’ defense. It’s been a bad season overall for New York teams.

Except for the Yankees. It’s never that bad for the Yankees, it seems.

“You look like death,” Zucc tells him. “There are going to be pictures tomorrow on all the Rangers blogs, talking about how sad you looked at the Knicks game tonight. The fans are going to think you know something.”

“I don’t know anything.” Ryan’s phone is burning a hole in the inner pocket of his jacket. He keeps his voice low, under the sound of the game so only Zucc can hear him. “I just can’t stop thinking about the trade deadline and like…it’s worse cause I’m injured, you know? I’m not even practicing, so all I’m doing is going crazy thinking about it. Yesterday I binge watched _Scandal_ while Jaeda was napping. Millsy caught me after nine episodes.”

“Is that the one with the White House lady…?”

“Yeah and she’s sleeping with the president.”

“Ah.” Zucc watches the game for a few seconds, and then he takes his arm off Ryan, patting him on the thigh instead. “He’ll let you visit her, you know. He knows how much you love her.”

Ryan’s fingers clench on nothing, and then he reaches into his jacket for his phone.

 

Two days and ten more episodes of _Scandal_ later, Ryan wakes in his own apartment, cold, alone, and for some reason, slightly pissed off. And then the date floats across the front of his mind and he immediately turns and buries his face in his pillow, groaning. He wonders if it would be possible to sleep past 3 o’clock and wake up in a post-deadline world where nothing’s changed. His hand hurts.

His phone rings as he’s getting in the car, but he ignores it. If it’s Jeff, it’s not like Ryan taking the call now as opposed to an hour later is going to make a difference, and he’s beyond the point of caring whether or not he pisses his GM off. And if it’s not Jeff, then what the fuck ever.

Outside J.T.’s place, he sits in his car for a couple minutes, trying to be cool about this. It’s still hours before the official deadline, which means he only has a few more hours of pretending that things are normal. He doesn’t realize his hands are shaking until he’s trying to fit his key in the lock, and it takes him a few tries before he gets it.

J.T. is in the kitchen already, putting a mug in the sink. He’s got his keys on the counter, probably about to head out for morning skate. Jaeda is busy entertaining herself in her little swing chair on the floor, and Ryan feels eyes on him as he immediately sinks to his knees to say hello to her.

“What were you up to? You weren’t answering your phone,” J.T. says.

“Had it on silent,” Ryan lies. Jaeda stares at him with big eyes and gurgles happily, reaching out for him.

Ryan takes her hand and kisses her fingers.

When he looks up, J.T. looks unhappy. He doesn’t normally look anything but excited or confused, but unhappy J.T. has been around for like, two weeks now, and it’s really starting to bother Ryan. He stands and doesn’t know what to do with his hands suddenly, so when J.T. nudges a cup of coffee in his direction, he holds onto it like it’s a lifeline. The coffee is in a blue mug that says _Millsy_ on one side and has a puck with the number 10 in it on the other side, and it’s become Ryan’s go-to mug whenever he’s making himself a hot drink at J.T.’s place.

“What’d you need me for?” he asks, taking a sip.

“I was gonna tell you not to come over.”

Ryan puts his mug down, hard. “ _What?_ ”

“I called Eva and she’s gonna watch Jay while I’m on the Western Canada roadie. So I was gonna tell you that you don’t have to come over today. But you didn’t answer your phone, so.” J.T. gestures at the coffee on the counter.

Ryan opens his mouth but can’t figure out what to say, and while he struggles, J.T. unstraps Jaeda from her swing chair and picks her up, holding her protectively and supporting her head and everything. It’s loads better than the first time Ryan watched him handle her, and he realizes suddenly how much they’ve both grown, both Jaeda and her dad.

It suddenly occurs to him that they might not need him anymore.

He’s never been the kind of guy who gives up without a fight though, so Ryan says, “I thought, since I’m not going on the roadie and I can’t hit the ice yet, I could take her to my place for the week and you didn’t have to call Eva. Thought you knew that.”

There’s a long pause, J.T. pacing little circles in the kitchen while Jaeda turns her head to follow Ryan with her eyes. “Sath talked to me yesterday, before we hit the ice, and he said they have no plans to move me this year.” J.T. goes quiet again for a moment. “I know they asked you for your no-trade list last week—”

“There’s only been rumors,” Ryan says. He reaches for Jaeda.

For the first time, J.T. doesn’t hand her over immediately, pulling her close to his own chest instead. “You could be on a plane tomorrow, and I’m gonna be on the other side of the country for the next week.”

“Millsy.” And Ryan has to force himself to speak calmly, to not panic even though there’s been a hard ball of panic and hurt building in his chest since the Rangers released that letter, since he submitted his list. “Until I get an actual call from Jeff telling me to pack my bags for wherever the fuck, I’m still a New York Ranger.”

J.T. bites his lip, not meeting Ryan’s eyes. Jaeda makes a curious little noise and grabs at his winter hat, missing a few times until she gets a good enough handful to pull it off his head and drop it on the floor.

“Millsy…” Ryan isn’t above begging. He isn’t.

They’re at a stalemate for a few more seconds, and then J.T. steps closer and lets Ryan take Jaeda from him. Ryan feels the ball in his chest loosen, just a bit, enough for him to fight it back.

“If Jeff calls—”

“I’ll have Eva on standby and have her meet me here before I go to the airport.”

J.T. nods, and then quickly, he leans in and kisses Jaeda’s head. His face is close to Ryan’s when he looks up, but he pulls away before Ryan can even think about moving a muscle. Not that Ryan would.

It would be really, really stupid for Ryan to do that.

They avoid each other’s eyes, J.T. texting on his phone—probably telling Eva to go back home, but be on standby until the deadline’s passed—and Ryan shifts Jaeda until he can free a hand to pick up his coffee again. He has to dodge Jaeda’s curious hands, but he’s getting good at that, and he only burns his tongue twice.

“So I’m gonna—” J.T. picks up his hat and tilts his head in the direction of the door. “A.V. scheduled a meeting before practice and I gotta meet with Sath again, so lots to do today before the plane leaves.”

The team charter will be en route to Vancouver at 3 o’clock. This could be the last time that Ryan stands in this apartment, as J.T.’s teammate. He tries to think about what would be an appropriate thing to say.

But he’s never been traded before. Being traded from Montreal as a college student doesn’t really count; he didn’t put his heart and soul into the Habs, not like he has for the Rangers. And he wasn’t in love with anyone on the Habs, either.

“Good luck in Vancity. Get those two points.”

It’s so, so, so fucking inadequate, but it’s all Ryan’s got.

J.T. gives him a jerky sort of nod and a rushed goodbye, and then Ryan blinks and he’s gone, the echo of the door closing coming to him late, nothing but the empty kitchen and the smell of J.T.’s cologne and the baby.

At a loss, Ryan turns and waters the cactus.

 

Later on, he can’t really describe what it’s like to be traded.

He’s sitting on his couch at home, Jaeda in her swing chair again a few feet away, and his phone’s battery life is at 34%.

There’s that initial gut-punch when Jeff calls him, when he says, “Mac, I wanted to let you know before it goes public—” and Ryan has to stop himself from saying that he knows, because Elliotte Friedman’s fingers work faster than anything else in the NHL, except for Shea Weber’s slap shot probably. Twitter is already having a meltdown about the Tampa trade, and Ryan searched in vain for the details to the trade package before the mentions caused him to completely deactivate his account.

Before he can ask about the details, Jeff is offering them up. “You’re going down to Tampa Bay with J.T. Miller. I’m letting Sath know, and he’ll send Millsy back east once the plane touches down in Vancouver.”

There’s nothing but white noise after that, and he must say something, answering on automatic when Jeff thanks him for his time in New York and wishes him luck with the Bolts. His fingers fumble for the _End Call_ button and he drops his phone, abandoning it to the cushions, and then he laughs.

He curls forward, pressing his face to his knees, and _laughs_ , laughs until a noise comes out of him that sounds like a sob.

Jaeda startles awake and starts to cry for real, and Ryan is instantly on the floor, dry-eyed, shushing her and rocking her in her swing until she settles and goes back to sleep.

And then he’s left there on the floor, gasping a little, trying to calm his racing heart, feeling every beat in his head and behind his eyes and in his lips and in every single part of his body. He sits on the floor and just breathes, for the first time in weeks.

 

His phone buzzes as he’s packing, trying to shove all the essentials in a duffel bag until he can get his belongings and car shipped down. It’s slow going, but at least he’s up and moving now, instead of sitting on the floor uselessly, watching Jaeda’s sleeping face.

The messages have been flooding in since the trade, and Ryan’s been ignoring his phone since the news broke. He’s called his parents and talked to who he needs to from the Rangers, and the rest are just texts from friends wishing him luck. Another buzz, and he gives up on filling the diaper bag and picks up his phone, intent on muting it until he sees that he has a new Whatsapp voice message.

“Hey Mac,” the message starts, J.T.’s voice coming low and a little scratchy over what sounds like the plane’s engines. Jaeda tries to lift her head, eyes alert as she follows the sound of her dad’s voice. Ryan sits next to her and starts rocking her again, both of them listening.

“Don’t know if you’re gonna get this since wifi’s pretty shit up here, but I wanted to try sending this anyway. So…everyone’s saying you and Tampa. Good for you, honestly. They’re really good and everyone says they’re the team to watch in the postseason this year so you’re gonna have a lot of fun down there, especially with G-man and Cally and Strals. I probably won’t hear the details til we land since my Internet won’t load, but guess I wanted to like…I don’t know. Thank you, I guess. For helping me this year. Honestly don’t know what I would’ve done without you, and your help means a lot to me so that was really nice of you.”

J.T. goes quiet. It always takes some time for him to come up with his words, and Ryan waits patiently. “I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that you’re the best captain I ever had and one of my best buddies, and I really liked spending more time with you. I’m real glad we got closer this year. I really love…uh, I mean, I appreciate you helping me be the best dad I can be for Jaeda.”

Jaeda giggles at the sound of her name and blows a spit bubble, kicking her feet.

There’s some more background noise, and Ryan hears J.T.’s voice at a distance, J.T. probably holding his phone away from his mouth as he talks to someone on the plane. He comes back after a minute.

“Sath wants to talk to me, probably about the season going forward, so I gotta go. I’ll try calling when we’re in Vancouver but um, good luck and thanks. Gonna miss you buddy.”

The voice message cuts off pretty abruptly. Ryan plays it again, partly for Jaeda, partly because he wants to listen to the content again.

It’s getting late already in New York, and Ryan does some quick mental math to figure out what time it is in Western Canada. The charter must be landing, and J.T. must’ve tried to send the voice message hours ago and forgotten to delete it before the wifi got strong enough to send it upon arrival in Vancouver.

Ryan doesn’t blame him for forgetting. It must’ve been a pretty busy afternoon.

He doesn’t get to the airport for another few hours, stopping by J.T.’s place for some baby stuff, and it’s well past dinner by the time he’s sitting in a terminal at JFK, duffel bag at his feet and Jaeda strapped to his chest, drowsing against his shoulder.

J.T. answers as soon as the call connects. Ryan thinks about bringing up the voice message, thinks about telling J.T. how grateful he is to have spent the past few months with him, how glad he is that they’re still gonna be together in Tampa, how he really, really wasn’t ready to say goodbye to not just New York and their team, but to J.T. and Jaeda especially.

But it feels too awkward to bring it up, the raw honesty in J.T.’s words, and Ryan doesn’t want to feel vulnerable out in the open in an airport terminal. He bites the inside of his cheek and smiles tightly back at the people who are giving him the delighted, heart-melting looks that dads seem to get for doing literally anything with a baby, and he talks to J.T. about the logistics of packing and moving during the season, and he doesn’t mention anything at all about the message.

 

His first day in Tampa is spent mostly dealing with paperwork. He meets the guys and gets to know them a bit, though he’s not cleared to practice yet. Dan and Cally take him out to lunch and give Ryan a few tips on apartment searching, something temporary maybe until the summer, when he’ll have more time to look into getting a permanent place.

J.T. shows up a day later, knocking down Ryan’s hotel room door until Ryan opens it sleepily and finds himself in the middle of a very enthusiastic hug. It’s the kind of hug appropriate for an OT celly, not for 8 in the morning.

“Hey, Mills—” Ryan starts, but J.T. lets go of his neck and darts into his room, making a beeline for where Jaeda is on her back on the bed, grabbing at her toes with a look of wonder on her face.

“Hi,” J.T. says, scooping her up and holding her face-to-face with him. Jaeda lets go of her feet and grabs his face, big gummy smile coming out in full force. There’s an equally big, stupid smile on J.T.’s face. “Were you good for Uncle Mac?” he asks in his ridiculous baby voice.

Ryan has to turn away, biting back his own smile.

But god, he loves them. Their little sort-of family, the three of them moving together from New York to Tampa. It’s because of hockey of course, but Ryan wants to never leave this room.

 

The team is nice. They love Jaeda immediately.

She’s sleeping when Ryan brings her by the locker room after practice and introduces her as J.T.’s kid, and then she wakes up grumpy and irritated, face scrunching up unhappily at all the attention. Palat almost melts on the spot.

“I love babies,” he says, which Ryan could guess from the way he’s nearly shaking with excitement.

Killorn stares. “I didn’t know you came with a baby.”

“Didn’t you see the _Baby up in this bitch_ sticker on the car?” Gourde asks.

J.T. gives them a casual shrug, but he’s flushed with barely suppressed pride. “She’s a wish baby. Got her in October.”

There is a chorus of _ooohs_. Wish babies are kinda rare.

Killer has got these big eyes that he uses to stare people down, and he's training them on Ryan right now. “So whose is she? Mac’s?”

“What? No, dipshit, she’s mine.”

“Yeah, but I mean who you wished for her with! Mac, right?”

“Mac’s like her godfather,” J.T. says. “Or uncle, or something. I didn’t wish for her with anyone. She just showed up on my doorstep first week of the season, and then boom, I have a baby.”

“Huh.” Killer gives Ryan one more lingering look, but then he peers into Jaeda’s face and gets sucked in by the cuteness, like everybody else.

“You know, he’s better at this dad thing than I thought,” Dan says, watching J.T. hand Jaeda to an unsmiling but very pink Kucherov. “Way I remember him, Millsy wouldn’t have been my top choice for dad of the year.”

Ryan feels his lips turn up, and he closes his eyes for a second, shaking his head and smiling at the memory. “You didn’t see him the first time he changed a diaper.”

There’s a thoughtful pause from Dan. “Alright, fair point. Shit everywhere?”

“Yeah. And he freaked out. Don’t tell him I told you that. Just a complete mess, didn’t know what the fuck he was doing.”

“Aww, Millsy.”

Across the room, J.T. is telling Vasilevskiy that “Mac is the best babysitter in the world.”

“He likes you,” Dan says softly.

“Course he does, I saved his ass so many times this season.”

Dan turns away and mumbles something that sounds like “ _should’ve nailed his ass_ ,” but Ryan is distracted by J.T., who looks up and over at them, empty-handed and stupidly beautiful in his new Lightning t-shirt and snapback.

J.T.’s lips part, like there’s something he’s about to say, but half the boys suddenly aww as Jaeda does—something. J.T. looks away from Ryan, back to where Jaeda is reaching for a handful of Kuch’s beard, and the moment is lost.

 

They spend two weeks looking for an apartment, the two of them hanging out with their backs against the headboard in Ryan’s room in the Marriott Waterside, the TV playing a Panthers game on low volume so as to not disturb a sleeping Jaeda. Well, Ryan looks for a two-person apartment while J.T. watches the game, shoulder pressed against Ryan’s, nearly elbowing him every time a player bangs one off the glass or off a pipe.

“What about this one?” Ryan asks, tilting his phone’s screen in J.T.’s direction.

J.T. looks away from where Barkov is lurking down low by the goal line. “Hmm? Oh yeah, looks good. Where is it?”

“Hyde Park, across the bridge from Amalie. Nice place, couple of the guys recommended.”

“Can you flip through the pics?”

Ryan swipes slowly through the pictures that the real estate people uploaded, and J.T. makes interested noises, both of them looking back to the TV whenever the announcer’s voice goes high and excited whenever there’s a grade A scoring chance or a scramble in the crease.

“There’s also this high rise in Channelside that I was looking at.” Ryan switches to another tab, and J.T. covers his hand with one of his own, tipping the phone so he can see. “I found some good pediatricians in both neighborhoods, and I called them while you were at optional skate, just to scope them out.”

“Nice.” Further down on the bed, their knees bump as J.T. adjusts his position. “You sure you’re good with us getting a place together?”

“Why not? This way I’ll be close by if you need me.” Ryan sees the hesitation in J.T.’s eyes and pushes on. “The apartments are big; it’s not like we’re gonna be on top of each other. And it’s just til the end of the season, and then we can move our stuff down properly and find a real place to stay.”

“I mean, I don’t wanna be like, needy or anything…”

“You’re not being needy.” If anything, it’s Ryan who’s needy, who needs J.T. nearby all the time, needs his warmth and his smile and all those silly faces he makes, the little things that make him J.T. And of course, he needs him for the sweet little girl who isn’t Ryan’s.

“I like Hyde Park,” J.T. decides, attention wandering back to the game, and Ryan makes a note of the address and number of the realtor.

There’s planning to do, meetings to set up and furniture to buy and probably an interior decorator to hire. Or Ryan could just call his mom, he guesses. She’d probably love to decide where the couch goes, and he has plenty of time to help with move-in before he’s taken off IR.

Actually moving isn’t as bad as he thinks it’ll be. He does a pretty good job setting up the apartment by himself, and he only has to facetime his mom like, twice when arranging the furniture, and J.T. helps out when he’s not at the rink. It’s a little bit simple, most of their stuff still in the process of being shipped down from New York to Florida, but Ryan likes what they’ve got. It’s beautiful.

The bed comes last, because, of course.

“Where’s the other one?” Ryan asks the mattress delivery guy.

“Fuck, dude, I don’t know. They just pay me to move the stuff. You can file a complaint with returns but we’re closed on weekends.”

“We paid for two mattresses though.”

The guy just shrugs, and it’s not like Ryan can _do_ anything, he’s holding a sleeping baby for fuck’s sake.

“You could share?” the guy offers, before asking for his signature, which Ryan gives.

“We could just share,” J.T. says when he gets home from the rink.

Why does everyone think it’s so normal for two guys to share a bed? Only Brady and Jimmy do that on the regular for their “bonding experience” or whatever they call it.

“We did it before and we didn’t die and it’s a pretty big bed,” J.T. points out.

Ryan can’t believe that J.T. is being the logical one here. _J.T._ He takes a deep breath and resigns himself to a weekend of sleeping with J.T. again and probably rubbing one out against his hip in the middle of the night or something equally horrifying.

He runs a hand through his hair and mumbles, “I’m gonna go call them and have them deliver our other one on Monday.”

“Okay,” J.T. says, totally cool with it, and drops onto the bed, bouncing a little on the mattress. He’s very clearly not wearing anything under his sweats. Ryan leaves the room and doesn’t slam the door because the baby’s sleeping.

 

J.T. sleeps like the dead. The guy routinely sleeps on the forest floor when he’s camping or hunting during All Star break, so Ryan isn’t surprised at all. Even after a lifetime of crashing in hotels all over the world, Ryan hasn’t been so lucky with sleeping in new places.

He checks the time, the glow from his phone lighting up a small patch of bed in front of him. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see J.T.’s silhouette. He tilts his screen until the light fully reaches him, enough to see by but too weak to wake him up.

Ryan stares at the side of J.T.’s face, at the birthmark on his jaw and the fan of his lashes and a little visor cut on his cheekbone that he probably got from being slammed face-first into the boards. He has a nice nose, Ryan thinks. His facial hair is a bit patchy, which is both funny and weirdly endearing in a way that only J.T. could pull off. Overall, not a bad face. Not like, Swedish-model beautiful like Henke, Ryan supposes, but then again, who is? Besides Henke and most of the Swedish men Ryan’s met.

J.T. just…he _looks_ like a guy who grew up in rural Ohio, a guy who grew up loving archery and golf and long quiet drives through the wilderness. He looks like someone who—to be honest—would lock himself out of his apartment several times a year and play hockey every night like it was the last game he’d ever play.

Ryan stares at him and breathes and thinks about how J.T. looks like someone he’d fall in love with. Someone he _did_ fall in love with.

As if he could hear the thought, J.T. turns his head, their eyes meeting in the blue glow from his phone. Ryan freezes.

“Hey, Mac. What’re you…?”

“Couldn’t sleep.”

“Mmm. Sucks,” J.T. says, voice quietly hoarse. “D’you want me to…?”

“To what?”

“Turn over.”

There’s a gentle push at his shoulder and Ryan rolls to his side. J.T. shifts, the bed bouncing—this new mattress is too bouncy, Ryan decides—and then there’s warmth along Ryan’s back, J.T.’s chest pressing closer but not too close. “I used to have trouble sleeping when my dad took me hunting,” he whispers, and Ryan has to hold back a shiver when he feels hot breath on the back of his neck. “We used to sleep back to back until I got used to sleeping in the woods.”

“Wait, does that really work?”

“Touch is supposed to help you sleep cause I don’t know, something about your heart slowing down when you know you’re not alone?”

That sounds like a load of bullshit, but Ryan isn’t going to complain. J.T. feels nice. They’re barely touching, but he’s right that it’s enough to know he’s there, to feel the ghost of his body heat beneath the covers.

He puts his phone down and falls asleep to the feel of J.T.’s slow breathing, warm and comforting against his skin.

When he wakes up, he’s aware of arms around his waist and even breathing behind his ear, and a really insistent something poking him in the ass. Without thinking, he grinds back against it and is rewarded with a quiet moan, the arms tightening and holding him closer. There’s one big thigh tucked between his, perfect pressure, and for a second, Ryan entertains the fantastic thought of rolling over and fucking those thighs until J.T. begs for it.

His eyes snap open. J.T. That’s definitely J.T., and that’s definitely J.T.’s dick.

Ryan is still thinking about what the fuck he’s supposed to do—like, what does _anyone_ do when they wake up with a hard on and finds themselves grinding back against the morning wood of their—their—whatever J.T. is to him. Teammate, friend, whatever, single dad to not-his-baby. He’s about to sit up and try to sneak out of bed when J.T.’s breathing changes, stutters a little and then picks up faster and much less steady.

Ryan slams his eyes shut and holds as still as possible.

There’s a very still moment, neither of them moving for a second, and then J.T.’s arms are gone as he rolls away with a muttered “ _Fuck_.” He gets out of bed and Ryan cracks an eye open in time to see him stumble in the direction of the bathroom, an obvious bulge in the front of his shorts. At least he’s not the only one with a morning wood problem.

It’d be weird to jerk off in their shared bed, right? Yeah, definitely really weird. Ryan checks on Jaeda instead, but she’s still sleeping.

J.T. comes out of the bathroom after maybe ten minutes, and Ryan tries not to think about how he might’ve jerked off in there. Either that, or he was reading one of those super long _Athletic_ articles that Joe Smith is always posting about the Lightning.

_No sexual thoughts about your teammate_ , Ryan reminds himself.

Which is to say that Ryan gets in the shower, picks up the earlier thought of fucking J.T.’s thighs, and wraps a hand around his dick. He braces an arm across the shower wall and rests his forehead against it, giving himself a few good strokes as he pictures how it would feel, the hot, tight strength of J.T.’s thighs and the hot, hard length of his dick in Ryan’s hand.

It takes less time than he thought it would, his orgasm sneaking up on him suddenly, and he comes cursing and whispering J.T.’s name and is glad that it’s drowned out by the sound of falling water.

He steps out of the bathroom feeling vaguely guilty and instantly runs into J.T. holding Jaeda. Ryan hopes the heat in his face can be blamed on the shower.

“I think she slept through the night for the first time,” J.T. says. The tops of his ears are red.

God. That’s one night sharing a bed. Ryan has two more nights.

 

The mattress company calls back to tell him that their records show they delivered the second mattress and that they need some more time to “sort this out.”

By the end of the week, Ryan starts to realize that he’s a lot more creative than he thought, as his fantasies get longer and more elaborate and start to involve J.T. in every position imaginable: on his knees and his back and bent over various pieces of furniture that Ryan can no longer look at without feeling light-headed.

Also, their first month water bill is going to be sky fucking high.

 

He’s glad when he’s cleared to finally join the lineup in Tampa.

It’s a slow process; they’re staying conservative, and he’s okay with that, but he’s antsy. His hand is evaluated every couple days, and he starts skating with the boys, letting the soreness settle into his muscles after two weeks off the ice. The first time he practices with the Bolts in a full-contact jersey, he slams Tyler Johnson into the boards so hard he feels his teeth rattle.

“Dude, you hit so fucking hard,” Johnny laughs. “Didn’t know you were known for throwing around your body like that.”

“Go easy, eh, Mac? It’s just practice,” Stammer says, skating past.

Stammer’s right, but Ryan has a lot of frustration to work off.

Being able to play hockey helps though. He’s less pent up, and he’s not sitting at home all day letting his emotions—and his dick—get the best of him. After a hard practice, it’s much easier to drop off to sleep before his body and brain can start reacting too much to J.T.’s presence in bed. It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s at least manageable.

He makes his Lightning debut at Amalie Arena in front of a sold-out crowd, on a pairing with Dan again and against the team that drafted him. They beat Montreal in the shootout that night. Ryan plays 19:15 and has one shot, one hit, and two blocks, respectable enough for a second pairing guy easing back into the lineup.

The abdominal pain that he is used to by now is back by the second intermission, but he’s able to grit his teeth and skate through it.

It’s good. The hockey is good.

They win a lot, not as much as the Lightning were winning earlier in the season but still better than most teams in the league. Cup contenders, you know? They’re winning way more than they’re losing, and the chemistry is great. The weather’s great. Everything’s great.

 

He spends an off day with Stammer, Heddy, and Cally at Stammer and Heddy’s house, playing cards and watching March Madness games, just getting to know some of the team’s core guys. It’s one of the few days he spends completely away from J.T. and Jaeda, and he does his best to not continually think about them.

As if reading his thoughts, Stammer asks, “You staying for dinner or heading home? Heddy makes a mean steak.”

Home is where J.T. is, which means that home is where Ryan wants to be. He forces himself to stretch out his legs, the picture of lazy comfort. “Guess I’ll stick around.”

They play two fast rounds of poker, talking about this or that, and then Stammer says casually, “So you’re living with Millsy, right?”

Ryan looks up from his cards (it was a pretty bad hand anyways). “Yeah,” he says. “Both of us wanted to find a place fast for the baby, so we settled on a temporary place for this season.”

Cally stares at his cards for another moment before throwing them down onto the table. “I’m out.” He turns to Ryan. “I get him needing a place fast for the baby, but you too? Is it like a two-fer kind of deal with you and him?”

“I’m like Jay’s uncle, I guess.”

“You _guess?_ ”

“We didn’t really talk about it.” Ryan folds too, and then it’s just Stammer and Heddy.

Stammer protects his cards, looking over the tops of them at Heddy. They share a long look, the kind of thing that guys start to get really good at when they’ve been playing together as long as those two have.

“So you fell into a whole relationship without talking about any of it.” Cally gives Ryan an unimpressed look. “Damn, Trucker.”

Ryan feels his face heat. “It’s not a relationship.”

“Sure,” Heddy says, which might be sarcastic but it’s hard to tell. Hedman is fucking hard to read. That’s probably why he’s winning.

“Millsy sure relies on you a lot though,” Stammer says. “He’s always looking to you.”

“We’re close and it’s hard being a single dad.”

“You planning on sticking around forever then? With him?” Cally asks.

When Ryan looks up, he finds three sets of eyes on him. “What?” he says. He heard Cally. He just doesn’t have an answer.

Another long look between Stammer and Heddy. In the end, Stammer shrugs too and says, “Alright, we get it. Get a load of this though.” He shows his hand, grinning up at Heddy, who stares back calmly before putting his cards on the table.

Heddy wins big. Stammer throws his cards at his face, laughing, and they start another round.

By the time Ryan gets back to his place, it’s full-dark out, and he opens the door to music. It’s not too loud, just enough for him to hear the strains of some country song he might’ve heard once or twice in the car. He follows it into the living room to see J.T., shirtless, wearing a Lightning snapback backwards and holding Jaeda to his chest. She’s looking up at him, eyes big and mouth open, and then as Ryan watches, she lays her head on J.T.’s shoulder.

J.T. doesn’t notice him, too busy smiling down at his baby and swaying along to the song he’s playing on his portable speakers, singing off-key. He does a weird little dance along with the beat, not too bad, but not exactly coordinated either.

Ryan feels his heart clench. This is what he gets to come home to, for now. It’s been almost six months, but he’s still blown away by it.

“Hey,” he says, softly, but it’s just loud enough to cut through the music.

J.T. stops dancing and looks up, the expression on his face open and light and happy. He grins at Ryan. “Hey. You missed bath time.”

“Is that where your shirt went?”

“Yeah. I got baby shampoo in my eyes and she splashed all over my shirt, so.” J.T. nods at where his wet t-shirt is laid over the back of the couch. “I think she likes it better when you’re giving her the bath.”

“Course she does.” Ryan shakes his head, smiling, and takes Jaeda when J.T. passes her over.

They don’t have to talk about it. Everything is great.

 

Zucc shakes his head, groaning over his wine. “So nothing changed, except now you sleep in the same bed as him and you jerk off in the shower thinking about it.”

“Wait hold on, we’re not talking about what I do in the shower—"

“Who said it’s the shower anyway?” Haysie asks with his shitty timing.

“Well.” Zucc ticks off on his fingers. “They share a bed so Mac can’t in bed. They live together so he can’t in other rooms too, in case Millsy walks in. Bathroom is the only private place, so obviously, shower.”

Ryan laughs along with the other boys who’ve come out with him for a little reunion, even as he feels himself flush. He can blame the redness on the beer he’s nursing or on the slightly orange lights of his favorite New York bar.

They laughter still hasn’t fully died down by the time J.T. joins them, and he looks around curiously. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing, Trucker was just telling us about Jay.” Henke leans forward on an elbow. “How’s the little princess?”

“She’s good. Learned to sit up on her own, and we’re trying to introduce her to solid food. She hates it.”

Ryan nods. “She got a handful of apple sauce the other day and threw it back in Millsy’s face. Great aim.”

“She wasn’t _aiming_ for my face, just for anything that wasn’t her mouth,” J.T. says, slightly wounded. But he smiles at Ryan and steals a sip from his beer, and Ryan catches several of the guys watching that with clear interest on their faces.

He takes his bottle back. “If you’re gonna steal mine, you’re buying me my next drink.”

“Sure thing,” J.T. says, easily. He gently tugs the beer out of Ryan’s hand again, and Ryan lets him.

There isn’t much left in the bottle, and they aren’t far into the “how are you, how’s it going, how’s post-trade life” conversation when J.T. excuses himself to go to the bar. Ryan brushes the back of his hand as he goes, a reminder, and J.T. nods.

Zucc gives him a look. Ryan ignores it. Thankfully, Zucc doesn’t bring it up, changing the subject instead.

“That was a nasty injury you had last month. That’s all cleared up?”

“Yep. Hand’s perfect.” Ryan flexes it, showing off his range of motion. “Got back about ten games ago and ‘s all been good since.”

He’s going to be in the lineup tomorrow, taking the ice at MSG. His first game back on familiar ice, after being sidelined for the last few weeks he was in New York. He is fine.

J.T. comes back with two bottles and puts one in front of Ryan.

 

He is fine, and the Lightning beat the Rangers 7-3 on the second half of a back-to-back, with their backup goalie in net. It’s almost an easy victory, if anyone could call any hockey game easy. He’s not kidding though; the Bolts have some serious firepower.

Ryan swallows back the lump in his throat when the Rangers play a tribute video for him, J.T., and Dan before puck drop. J.T. is avoiding everyone’s eyes, face stony and hands clenching on his stick.

As soon as the game’s over and Ryan steps off the ice and down the tunnel, he rests against a wall, fingers spread low on his belly as he sucks in deep breaths through the ache. The playoffs are four games away, and they’re still neck-and-neck with Boston for the division title.

He is fine.

 

The Lightning end the season top of the East, though it takes a last-minute Boston regulation loss for it to be sealed. They draw the second wildcard Devils in round 1, a fact that the boys are pretty happy about. The mood during morning skate is cheerful, though no one misses the fact that the real show starts now.

An assistant coach stands by the boards and shouts, “Breakout, shot, forecheck!”

The breakout is the hardest. Ryan can’t dig into the ice like he normally would, and he _knows_ there’s less power in his first two steps, a season-long drop in his explosiveness. He does his best anyway, and then Pointer is there, backchecking hard, small and persistent. Any other season and Ryan would shrug him off. Any other season, Ryan isn’t hurting with every stride he takes on the ice.

Pointer strips him of the puck at the blueline and he twists to recover, not fast enough to catch up to the little guy, and pain explodes in his hip and groin. It’s nothing he hasn’t felt before, but he feels his muscles lock up just enough for him to lose his balance and fall.

It takes him too long to get up. In that time, Pointer has abandoned the breakout and returned, bending over him. “You okay, Mac?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Ryan says. He gets back to his feet and finds half the team looking at him anxiously. “I’m good,” he says.

“I clip your head or something?” Pointer asks.

“Nah, just lost my balance. We’re good.” He looks at the assistant coach. “Breakout, shot, forecheck?”

“Breakout, shot, forecheck. Blue team.”

Pointer gives him another concerned look before his face smooths into fierce concentration, eyes on the puck. That kid is scary.

It’s already close to the end of practice, and they wrap up pretty soon, something that Ryan is thankful for. He gets off the ice feeling shaken. In the locker room, he yanks his glove off and probes at the familiar lingering ache in his lower belly.

“Hey, Mac? Did Pointer hurt you?”

Ryan jerks his fingers away immediately. “What? Yeah. I mean—no. He didn’t do anything.”

J.T. only blinks at him, head cocked, and Ryan hurries to undress and hit the showers.

They don’t talk about it, and Ryan thinks everyone’s forgotten his little slip-up until he’s home and J.T. corners him in the hallway, grabbing his elbow to stop him from walking into the kitchen.

"What’s up?” Ryan asks.

J.T. doesn’t waste any time. “Are you okay? Seriously, Mac. Are you hurt?”

“What? No. I’m fine. Said that earlier, didn’t I?”

“You’re not skating like normal.”

Ryan hasn’t skated like normal in _months_. He’s done a pretty good job of hiding it from everyone but the coaching staff in New York and Tampa, and his teammates have chalked it up to age or exhaustion from the grind of the season. He shrugs, fingers clenching around the pack of formula powder in his hands. “Just an ache.”

“No it’s not, cause you’ve been skating weird since before the trade and it’s been like, five, six weeks since that.”

No one would call _J.T._ the most perceptive person on the team. Probably the opposite, to be honest. Ryan is surprised. “Didn’t know you were watching me skate, Millsy,” he says, trying for teasing.

But J.T. doesn’t take the bait for once. He only crowds closer, hand coming up and hovering over Ryan’s lower stomach, not touching, just inches away for a few moments. He drops his hand. “I notice some things,” he says quietly. “Like when my captain is hurting.”

“I’m not the—Don’t let Stammer hear you say that.”

“You know what I mean.”

Yeah, Ryan does. “Just battling through a lingering injury,” he says reluctantly.

Silence for a minute. It’s J.T. who breaks it first, impatient. “What is it?”

“…Sports hernia.”

Blank shock on J.T.’s face. “Jesus, fuck. Hernia? You sure?”

“Yeah, I’m not a fucking doctor, Millsy, it’s not like I decided I wanted to have a hernia. I just listen to what the doctors tell me.”

“When did you…? Since when?”

“Must’ve been around mid-November. I noticed after we got drilled in Chicago.”

J.T. hisses out through his teeth, sympathetic. “How much does it hurt?”

It doesn’t, when Ryan is just standing or walking or holding Jaeda. It doesn’t even hurt when he’s skating slowly. But every time he turns to chase the puck or twists his body to follow the play or goes from a standstill to his top speed in two strides, he feels it: sharp, stabbing pain that cuts through his abdomen and down to his inner thigh, sharp enough to make him bite his tongue through his mouthguard.

He wants to lie, but J.T.’s face is tight, and he looks genuinely upset like he hasn’t in a long time. Like beyond upset, beyond shitty play and losing a game kind of upset. Ryan opens his mouth, and it’s the truth that comes out. “It’s pretty bad. But I can’t drop out now in the middle of the playoffs, and it doesn’t make it worse if I play through it. I just gotta make it to the summer.”

J.T. is still for a moment, and then he nods jerkily. “Four rounds,” he agrees. He deflates a little. “All season long though? You were playing hurt almost all season.”

Ryan shrugs. “No time to let it heal. That’d take two months at least, and we can’t afford to lose someone for that long. I’m not the first person to play through a hernia.”

“I just can’t believe you didn’t tell any of us in New York.”

“Didn’t want to freak anyone out. Jeff knew though, and so did Stevie Y. But I didn’t want to make it a big deal, especially since I knew it was gonna be a long-term thing. I wasn’t gonna be a fucking distraction.” He takes a deep breath and rubs a hand over his face. “Don’t tell the boys.”

“I won’t.” J.T.’s eyes are soft when he looks at Ryan. “But you gotta talk to me, ‘kay? Don’t hide stuff from me, Mac.”

“Sure,” Ryan says, and the word only sticks a little in his throat. “I’ll remember that for next time.”

J.T. plucks the formula from his hands and smiles. “I’ll make the formula, you can go get her.”

Ryan nods, and he doesn’t let out his shaky breath until J.T. leaves.

 

The Devils go down easy. 5 games. Kuch and Pointer practically do it on their own.

They’re playing beautiful hockey in Tampa. Ryan comes home every day to his beautiful apartment and his beautiful teammate and his teammate’s beautiful baby, and life is fucking beautiful.

 

They’re watching Toronto and Boston beat it out in Game 6, Boston up 3-2 in the series but Toronto up 2-1 in the game. Ryan tries to focus on the game, knowing that whoever wins the series is who they’ll be facing next, but he’s distracted by J.T.’s presence next to him on the bed, his heat and his shoulder rubbing up against his and their thighs and knees aligned.

J.T. is scrolling through his phone, only half-watching the second intermission report that NBC is airing. He looks ready for sleep—loose t-shirt and comfortable shorts and backwards snapback, all soft around the edges.

Ryan shifts around until he’s slouched and can lean his head on J.T.’s shoulder. Jaeda is sprawled out in Ryan’s arms, a comfortable weight that he’s supporting on his lap. She’s mostly still, distracted by her pacifier and happy to stay quiet while going at it. Without looking up from his phone, J.T. wraps an arm around his shoulders, holding him tucked against his side.

This close, Ryan notices that J.T. smells like his own body wash but Ryan’s shampoo, like he stepped into the shower and reached for the nearest bottle without giving a fuck whose it was. It gives him a little thrill, and he closes his eyes and relaxes into the warmth of his teammate and friend.

He must nap for some 20 or 30 minutes because when he next opens his eyes, the third period is half over and a commercial break is coming up, the score still at 2-1 Toronto. Ryan peeks at Jaeda and finds her lights out. Without thinking, he shifts her sleeping weight, lifting her close enough for him to press a kiss to her forehead. “Think we should put her to bed,” he says.

When he looks up, he catches J.T. looking down at the two of them.

“Oh,” J.T. says. He blinks hard. The top of his ear is red, very visible against his dark hair. Ryan has a great view of it.

He struggles into an upright position, careful not to waken Jaeda, and J.T. drops his arm from around him. “You good, Millsy?”

“Uh, yeah.”

Ryan nods and licks his lips, and he doesn’t miss the way J.T.’s eyes drop to settle on his mouth, nor does he miss the blush spreading from J.T.’s ears to his cheeks.

“You sure about that?” Ryan isn’t sure when he started whispering, but it doesn’t feel right to speak loudly, and not just because of the sleeping baby in his arms.

“Yeah, I just—” J.T. looks back up, into Ryan’s eyes. “—I just realized that we’re like, a family, aren’t we?”

“Yeah, you could say that. Something wrong with that?”

“Well, I was just thinking, you’re like Jaeda’s dad, her other dad I mean, and I…I’m really happy about that. I want her to have more than one person she can look up to.” J.T. reaches over and brushes a hand over the top of Jaeda’s head. “But I’m not sure it’s such a good idea like _this_ , cause, you know…Never mind.”

“What?” J.T. shakes his head, and Ryan presses on. “No stop, don’t fuck with me like this, Millsy. Did I screw something up?”

“No! No, nothing like that, Jesus, Mac. It’s just cause…we were just sitting there together like we’re—like we’re like _that_ , but we’re not, and I—we—”

Ryan waits him out, knowing that J.T. has trouble putting his thoughts into words when he gets agitated or overexcited. Though he’s definitely more agitated here. His face is still red, and he’s broken off eye contact to stare at Jaeda, still balanced in Ryan’s lap.

J.T. takes a big breath and says, all in a rush, “I didn’t want to tell you that I don’t need your help anymore, cause I always feel like I need you, but I’ve been sort of putting it off for months.”

“Are you kicking me out?” Ryan asks. He can’t help it; it’s hard to follow J.T.’s train of thought.

J.T.’s eyes widen, and he’s surprised enough to look back at Ryan. “ _No_. I mean, maybe not right away? But I don’t know, I don’t fucking know how to do this without you but I can’t keep doing the thing where I look down at you curled up with me and my baby and I’m sitting here thinking about how I want this forever cause it’s not—Cause you don’t want, not with _me_ —like you want your own babies and a wife or something I guess, right, Mac? And I’m just being dumb like Grabs always says.”

Only about half of that made sense to Ryan, but he thinks it’s a half that’s making his heart beat like mad, blood rushing to his face as he starts to piece together what J.T. is saying. Maybe. Just maybe.

“I already have a baby,” he barely hears himself saying.

“ _What?_ When?!”

“I mean Jay. Jaeda. And I do wanna get married someday but I’m not in a rush now cause I kinda got this teammate and his baby girl who need me, and I kinda love them, you know?”

J.T. blinks at him, confused. Ryan sighs.

“I do want, with you,” he says quietly, barely audible over the sound of blood rushing in his ears. Oh god, please don’t let this be a mistake. “When you said that I don’t want _this_ forever, I do though. Thought it was pretty obvious to everyone, how I feel about you.”

Now J.T. looks _very_ confused. “Wait, hold on,” he says, face scrunching up. His mouth moves, silent, and Ryan is still waiting for him to say something when something wet and rubbery drops onto his arm.

It’s Jaeda’s pacifier.

She’s still out cold, her little mouth open as she sleeps, but it’s enough for Ryan to realize that they’re having this conversation over a sleeping baby, which probably isn’t the best move. He swings his legs over the side of the bed and stands, glancing over at J.T.

“I’m gonna put Jay to bed.”

He doesn’t wait for an answer, too anxious to wait around for J.T.’s brain to come back online. The hallway is dark, and he walks to the nursery using muscle memory alone.

The curtains are open in the nursery. It’s a beautiful cloudless night in Tampa, a few tiny bright lights in the sky that could be stars or planes or both. Ryan takes his time putting Jaeda into her crib and tucking her in, putting the baby monitor close. He debates giving the pacifier back to her but ends up leaving it on the table for washing up tomorrow.

“Night, sweetheart,” he says, voice low. He brushes back one wispy strand of hair and then stares down at her, trying not to think about J.T. waiting for him back in the room. Their room. The room that was supposed to be Ryan’s, except for the fact that they only have one bed in the apartment and they never got around to getting that second mattress from the mattress place, and J.T. pretty much just lives in Ryan’s room now, the second bedroom nothing more than a glorified closet and storage room for the boxes they had shipped down from New York.

God, Ryan can see how it looks from the outside.

He checks Jaeda over one more time before stepping out of the room, closing the door carefully behind him and making sure that the knob is soundless when he lets go. He pauses a moment before turning around.

J.T. is there, nearly chest-to-chest with him. Ryan doesn’t quite jump but he does instinctively try to draw back, his back hitting the door.

“Jesus fuck, you scared me,” he whispers. “Just standing there in the dark.”

“Sorry,” J.T. says, also hushed. “I um, really needed to know if what you were saying earlier was, you know. If you were saying that you…want…?”

In a way, it’s easier this time because they’re in the dark. Ryan can’t see him that well, can’t see J.T. as anything more than a solid mass that’s darker that the darkness around them, and he focuses on the edges of that. “Yeah,” he says. He’s proud of the fact that his voice is steady.

It’s a shot in the dark. Almost literally.

“So you’re—you—”

“If you want me to spell it out, then yeah. I’m in love with you.”

There’s nothing but quiet breathing from J.T., and then he says, “I thought I was gonna fucking go crazy if I had to look at you one more night and couldn’t do this.”

His hand now, on Ryan’s chest, and then Ryan feels a nose brushing his cheek before their lips touch.

He’s expecting something hard and fierce, but J.T. keeps it light, keeps it gentle, a soft kiss to Ryan’s bottom lip, the barest pressure.

Ryan curls one hand around his waist. He doesn’t have time to do more than draw in a quick breath through his mouth before J.T. says, “ _Mac_ ,” hushed but almost strangled against his lips, something about his voice that’s suddenly strained and desperate. And then J.T. is pressing him back against the door and crushing their mouths together, harder this time, a kiss that catches Ryan by surprise.

He closes his eyes on instinct, hands spreading over J.T.’s back, and then J.T. opens his mouth and Ryan can’t help himself.

He doesn’t know how long they stand there making out, pressed up against the door of their—of J.T.’s daughter’s room. Fuck it, she’s Ryan’s daughter too.

“ _Fuck_ , Mac,” J.T. says. There’s no light in the hallway to see him by, but Ryan _knows_ J.T., and his mind fills in the way J.T. must be blushing, the way his mouth must be red, the skin around it raw from beard burn. He has to close his eyes against the dark.

They lose probably another ten minutes, nothing but the sound of their ragged breathing when they break apart long enough for a few breaths. Ryan can feel himself getting hard. He’s trying to take it all in, all of it: J.T.’s mouth and hands, one bunched in Ryan’s shirt and the other digging into his shoulder, J.T.’s thigh between his, the very obvious hard-on that he’s starting to rock against Ryan’s hip.

Ryan wants to press him to the mattress, wants to feel him wrap those incredible thighs around him. He wants to go back to kissing the breath out of J.T. until they’re both dizzy with it, but not dizzy enough to stop. He wants—God, Ryan _wants_ him.

Ryan wants him, and he’s still wrapping his head around the idea of getting to _have_ him. J.T. rubs against him again and makes a needy little sound against his cheek.

“My bed or yours?” Ryan asks.

J.T. laughs, breathless. “Ours,” he says. “C’mon.”

 

It’s nice to be able to see J.T. again. In the light of their room, he looks good, dark hair and beginning of a playoff beard and red mouth. God, Ryan did that, kissed his mouth red and swollen-looking. His own mouth feels sensitive when he bites his lip, unsure of how to pick back up.

But J.T.’s never been shy, and he wastes no time pushing Ryan against the wall and sliding a hand under his shirt, resting it on his waist as he leans in for another kiss. Ryan closes his eyes, lets himself relax into it again as he licks into J.T.’s mouth and brings a hand up to slide into the short hairs at the top of his neck.

He pulls away after a few minutes. “Good?”

“I’ve had sex before, you know. Like, loads of sex.”

“Never with me.”

“True. We should fix that. Soon as possible cause I don’t think I could wait really long—”

Ryan kisses him again.

It doesn’t take long for J.T. to begin grinding against him, pressing as close as he can. They’re not lined up perfectly, and it’s more of a tease than anything, but Ryan lets him go at it for a while before reaching down and giving him a little squeeze through his sleep shorts.

That gets him what sounds like a moan, J.T. pulling his mouth away and burying his face against Ryan’s neck.

“That good huh?” Ryan says, amused.

“Stop being a fucking tease.”

Ryan slides his hand beneath the waistband and gets it on J.T.’s dick to give it a short little stroke, fingers slipping over the wet tip, and then J.T. is moaning for real this time, hips jerking as he chases the feeling.

“Can you—tighten your hand?”

The angle isn’t great like this, especially while the shorts are still on, but Ryan gives it his best shot. It seems to work for J.T. anyway, who’s started scattering distracted kisses along Ryan’s jaw and cheek, catching the corner of his mouth a few times. Ryan turns his head and gently nips at his lower lip until J.T. gives him a proper kiss, slow and hot and deep, perfect counterpoint to Ryan’s strokes.

His fingers find the spot just under the head, something that Ryan knows is super sensitive, and he brushes against it a few times as he moves his hand. J.T. drops his head, groaning softly, and Ryan has to bite back a grin.

“Fuck. Fuck, Mac. Oh god.” Mouth free, J.T. mumbles a string of curses against Ryan’s shoulder as his hips shift restlessly. His fingers are digging into Ryan’s side, one hand wrapped tight against Ryan’s bicep.

“I know,” Ryan says. He tips his head back for a second, and J.T. begins mouthing over his neck, kissing and biting and doing god knows what else. Ryan just knows it feels amazing. It feels even better when J.T. finally lets go of his deathgrip on Ryan’s arm and slides his palm over his abs, down to his very neglected dick. He bucks up into J.T.’s hand.

“Fuck,” J.T. says, which seems to be all he’s capable of saying while there’s a hand on his dick. And then, “Can I suck you?”

Ryan thinks his brain goes offline for a second. “Jesus Christ, yeah, yeah go ahead.”

It takes a moment for them to let go of each other, Ryan giving J.T. one last lingering stroke, which gets him a full-body shiver, before J.T. pulls away and awkwardly gets on his knees. It’s not graceful, but Ryan doesn’t care, not when he feels J.T. slide his hands up the backs of his thighs, pushing the fabric of Ryan’s shorts up so he can kiss the exposed skin.

The feel of his beard rubbing against his inner thighs makes Ryan jump and then groan.

“Come on,” he says, trying not to sound impatient. It comes out a little pleading. “You don’t have to warm me up anymore.”

“Hey, I don’t want you saying I don’t know how to do foreplay.”

“Not tonight. Please, J.T., just—”

J.T. gets his mouth on Ryan’s dick, sucking lightly at the tip through the fabric, sloppy and open-mouthed. He looks up and smiles, just smiles as Ryan pushes his shorts down enough to get his dick out. And he’s still looking up when he wraps his hand around the base and leans in for a long, slow lick up the underside and around the head.

Ryan doesn’t slam his head into the wall, but it’s a close call. “Oh god,” he whispers.

Blindly, he reaches for J.T.’s head, connecting with the bill of his snapback, still on somehow. He pushes it off and runs his fingers through soft hair as J.T. takes the tip of his dick in his mouth, sinking down as far as he can.

Lips stretched around his cock, eyes big and dark as he stares up—Ryan is going to be having wet dreams about this for _years_.

J.T.’s mouth is tight and hot and perfect suction for about two minutes before he suddenly pulls off, mouthing weakly at the length of Ryan’s dick and along his balls in an almost distracted way. Ryan looks down again and sees J.T.’s hand in his shorts, arm moving in quick, jerking motions.

“Are you jacking off?” he asks, even though he already knows.

The only answer he gets is a soft whine, muffled around his dick. There’s a sloppy noise as J.T. tries to suck properly again, but he doesn’t keep it up for long, mostly just moaning around his stuffed mouth, arm moving faster.

Ryan thinks about teasing him, but J.T. looks wrecked already, mouth full and hand working himself at a brutal pace. And to be honest, Ryan doesn’t mind waiting right now. It’s hot enough watching J.T. struggle to multitask, torn between giving a real blowjob and chasing his own pleasure. When he looks up, Ryan can see how overwhelmed he is, can see it in his eyes and in the breaths coming harsh and fast through his nose like he can’t get enough air. God, he looks close, and beautiful.

“You close?” he whispers. His fingers card through J.T.’s hair. “Fuck, you gonna come? You gonna come just like that, from blowing me?”

It’s not the sexiest dirty talk, but J.T. squeezes his eyes shut and groans, a little high-pitched, and then he’s ripping his mouth away and gasping as he comes in his shorts. He’s fucking shaking. It’s about the hottest thing Ryan’s ever seen.

J.T. rests his forehead against his hip and Ryan pets his hair, trying to stay gentle even though his cock is begging for attention. Each of J.T.’s breaths comes hot and damp against his wet skin, and he feels himself twitch, fingers clenching in J.T.’s hair for a second.

“Yeah, give me a sec, I’ll get to that,” J.T. says, still breathless.

“Don’t worry about it.” God, Ryan is dying.

After another minute, J.T. finally wraps his lips around his dick and starts blowing him again, and it’s hot and wet and so fucking good. Ryan tries to stay still, tries to let J.T. call the shots, but his hips are bucking up into it after just a few seconds, and he’s cupping the back of J.T.’s head to hold him closer, deeper. He can’t last like this, not when J.T. is doing a pretty fucking good job of trying to swallow his dick. God, he wants to come, wants to mark J.T., have him smell like sex and Ryan and all the things that Ryan wants to do to him.

“Think I’m— _fuck_ —” he pants.

He wonders if it would be more rude to come in J.T.’s mouth or on his skin. Before he can even start to ask though, J.T. pulls his mouth away and asks, “D’you wanna come on my face?”

“Oh fuck,” Ryan says, which isn’t an answer, but J.T. has started jerking him off, hand moving sure and fast, and Ryan is so fucking close already that he can’t think.

J.T. makes the choice for him. Ryan manages to stutter out only half a warning before he’s coming, J.T. stroking him through it until he’s almost flinching. And then J.T. lets go, resting his head back on Ryan’s hip. Ryan’s fingers return to his hair, petting gently as they both catch their breath.

“So that was, uh. Really good,” Ryan says. He feels lame as soon as he says it.

“Mmm,” is all J.T. says. He looks up, and Ryan almost wants to go again at the sight of him. There’s jizz on his chin and neck and the collar of his shirt, and he’s looking up at Ryan, tongue peeking out for a second to lick off the few drops that landed on his lips. He’s grinning kinda sleepily.

“You look—”

“Hot?”

“I was gonna say tired, but yeah.” Ryan strokes his hair again. “You look hot. But we should clean up before that dries.”

J.T. gets to his feet a little stiffly, and Ryan gives him a hand up. He’s never been into the whole licking come off people’s faces thing, but he does give J.T. a quick kiss and tastes himself, salty and a little sticky. J.T. sighs softly against his lips.

“Gonna try that on the bed next time. Brutal on my knees.”

Right, the bed. Their still-new, bouncy bed, big enough for them to roll around on. They can get to that later.

Ryan drags them both into the bathroom and turns on the shower, letting it run hot as he strips J.T. He gets absolutely no help from J.T., who seems perfectly happy to sit there uselessly and let Ryan do whatever to him.

“Sleepy,” he tells Ryan as his tee is being pulled off.

“You got jizz on your shirt _and_ in your shorts,” Ryan reminds him. “You’re a fucking mess, dude.”

“Your fault,” J.T. says, which isn’t a lie. Ryan shoves him into the shower and gets in after him. J.T. immediately turns to him, all visible traces of come already gone from his face, and he presses a kiss to his mouth, arms coming up to wrap around Ryan.

And then there’s just slippery wet skin, hot from the water, and J.T.’s hotter mouth, the feel of their bodies pressed together. Ryan kisses his mouth and his nose and the little birthmark on his jaw, and J.T. lets out a happy noise.

Ryan could seriously get used to this.

 

They have practice late the next day, in the early afternoon. It’s a rare luxury due to their finishing the Jersey series early, and Ryan takes the opportunity to sleep in. He wakes to morning sunlight and J.T.’s head pillowed on his chest, a comforting weight, his hair soft and tickling him a little.

He brushes the hair back, tucking it behind one ear before tracing the shell of J.T.’s ear and down his jaw. J.T. sleeps through it.

Ryan is happy to lay there with him for as long as he can, at least until his bladder prompts him to get moving. There’s no way to sit up without waking J.T., but he tries anyway, propping himself up on one elbow carefully and slowly.

“Pillows don’t move,” J.T. mumbles.

“This pillow needs to piss.”

J.T. turns his head and kisses the nearest part of Ryan, which is a nipple, and then he bites it, light and experimental. Ryan jumps. His dick twitches with interest, but now’s really not the time, and he gently pushes J.T.’s head away.

“Wasn’t kidding about needing the bathroom.”

“Fine. I’ll go check on Jay.”

They both get out of bed and look for clothes, Ryan finding a shirt that looks like his and digging up some clean boxers from the drawer they share. After he’s done with the bathroom, he heads into the kitchen and starts the coffee maker.

It’s a beautiful day in Tampa, warm already in late April, and patches of sunlight spot the kitchen counters. Ryan half-fills a cup with water and pours it into the cactus pot on the windowsill until water runs out the bottom, and as he does, he notices bright green growth at the top, maybe a quarter inch of new cactus and some new spines.

“Adjusting already, huh?” he says softly to the plant.

Obviously, the cactus doesn’t answer, but the coffee maker does, and Ryan pours two mugs and is adding cream and sugar when J.T. walks in with Jaeda awake in his arms. She’s miraculously not crying for breakfast yet, content with trying to shove her whole fist in her mouth.

“Think I’ll try the pear sauce today,” J.T. says, putting her in her high chair. She kicks her little legs enthusiastically and babbles.

“Coffee?” Ryan turns to him, holding both coffees, and J.T. takes the one not in the _Millsy 10_ mug.

He kisses Ryan softly, a hesitant kind of kiss like he’s still not entirely sure he gets to do this, and Ryan kisses him back, free arm wrapping around J.T.’s waist to hold him close for these few moments.

J.T. pulls away and laughs a little. “I could get used to waking up like this.”

There’s a lightning bolt on his shirt and a 27 in white, right over his heart.

Ryan watches as J.T. puts his coffee down and gets out a jar of pear-flavored baby food. He hands him a spoon.

Nothing’s guaranteed, in life. Sometimes, life just drops a baby on your doorstep, no explanations given. There’s no guarantee about what’ll happen in the next few weeks, how far the Lightning will go in the postseason, whether there’s a Cup waiting for them at the end. Hell, they don’t even know who they’re playing in the next round.

But Ryan thinks, watching Jaeda smear pear sauce over her face and J.T.’s fingers, J.T. fighting to get at least a few drops in her mouth, that here, in this moment—He could stay here forever and be happy.

J.T. throws him a look over his shoulder, a _come here_ _and help me with our baby_ sort of look, and Ryan crosses the kitchen to join him.

**Author's Note:**

> I can't believe I named my OC Jaeda Tailynn but you know what! It was in character for J.T.!
> 
> Pics that made me cry about grown ass men:
> 
> [Mac with infant](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dv5VM3iUcAcCEum.jpg). [Mac with baby](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dv-folhX4AAHz98.jpg). [Mac cradling his dog](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DwIVcdjWwAAeRNF.jpg). [Mac Winter Classic](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DtOtYLMW0AEk-TW.jpg).  
> [Screenshot of J.T. with baby](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DvOEqImUcAAFW4z.jpg). [J.T. Millzie king of wearing snapbacks](http://stevenstamkos.tumblr.com/post/180217699446).
> 
> Writing [tumblr](https://jveleno.tumblr.com/)


End file.
